BLISS
by Lost Fanfiction
Summary: A young woman and young man awaken on an island. With no memories beyond two names, all they can do is survive. That is... if the island will let them. (By Mike Loader and Lara Bartram. Story published here because all websites is is on have vanished.)
1. part 1

This story was written by Mike Loader and Lara Bartram. I am posting it here because there is no other easily available website that the story can be read on. If the authors of the story with to talk to me about posting it, contact me using the email in my profile.

As an added note for any new readers, I suggest you not read any reviews until you reach the end of the story.

* * *

BLISS

part 1

by Mike Loader and Lara Bartram

She woke up as another wave washed over her. Sitting up slowly, her entire body screamed at the effort, her muscles stiff, her skin dry. Opening her eyes brought its own agony as the light assaulted her vision and salt and sand stung her.

Another wave washed over her, splashing her gently in the face, causing her to sputter. Salt water. Ocean water. She looked out at what was in front of her and could only stare. Water. Lots of it. An ocean. And she was…

Looking around, she was nowhere. Some beach, somewhere, no place she recognized, seemingly sitting on the edge of forever, the limitless expanse of blue before her. Far off into the

distance, the ocean and the sky seemed to merge, becoming a single massive entity, making her feel like she was the only person in a great blue void.

She felt... awful. She must have been passed out on the beach for days because exposed skin, and there was quite a bit of it, was angry red, sunburned. Her lips felt dead, dried out, and she was intensely hungry. Possibly worse was how dry her mouth was. Water... She desperately needed water.

Standing was a struggle. She felt weak all over and hoped that it was only temporary. If it wasn't, she just might end up dying on the lonely beach and becoming nothing more than a dried

out husk. And she wouldn't allow that to happen to herself.

Forcing herself to stand and to look away from the endless blue, she looked at the land behind herself. Jungle. Alien. Green and lush, and it looked hot, while the blue had at least looked cool. Maybe it would be better to just wander out into the blue and relax. The green looked so much tougher to handle.

Yes, the blue looked better. She was about to turn and head into that blue, the cool, refreshing blue that would soothe her pain, when she heard it. A moan from somewhere nearby. At the edge of the green, hidden partially by shade and a fallen tree…

Stumbling as much as walking, she approached the mystery, unable to even care if there might be danger involved. The only thing she did care about was that she might not be alone. And indeed, waiting on the ground, moving feebly, was another person. A young man.

Somehow, she managed to drag him back among the green, but in the comforting shade. Sitting next to him, basking in the slight coolness of the shade, away from the killing sun, she knew she couldn't allow herself to fall asleep. She might not wake up. But food... And water. And the young man.

* * *

When she opened her eyes again, there was darkness. Maybe she was dead, but she didn't think so. There was still so much oppressive heat, and she was still hungry, and so thirsty.

"Drink this," a tired sounding voice said.

Something rough was placed at her lips and tilted, sending something wet and cold impacting with her lips. The sensation almost made her cry out, but she greedily began to slurp at the liquid.

"Not so fast," the voice said. "You'll get sick."

She didn't care. The feeling of that cold liquid was enough for the moment. Whether she could actually stomach it or not was not an issue. It felt good against her dried lips and washing over her parched gums and tongue. And down her throat... She had suddenly been transported to heaven.

Moments later, she was doubled over, retching it up, her stomach refusing the offering as too much, too fast. The act of vomiting was almost too much for her to handle and it felt like she might faint again, but something wet and cold was placed against her forehead and that seemed to bring her back to reality.

After she recovered, the cold liquid was offered again, and this time, she sipped it. Her stomach gurgled ominously, but decided not to reject the liquid that was offered. Sighing with relief, she leaned back and relaxed as the cold cloth was passed across her forehead again. "Thank you," she said weakly, her whole body feeling drained.

The cloth was removed, but the offered liquid remained. "You're welcome."

She turned to see the face of the speaker and discovered the young man that she had found on the beach sitting behind her, supporting her. He was wiping his neck with the cloth he had torn from his shirt, his face looking as tired as she felt.

"Drink more if you think you can hold it," he offered.

Nodding, she turned and looked at exactly what was being offered. It was some sort of dried out gourd maybe, or shell of something like a coconut. It was filled with cold, clear, sweet,

refreshing water. Not pausing again, she drank the rest of it down, spilling some out of the sides. Once it was drained, she lowered the vessel and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. "Where'd you get this water?" she asked.

"A river, not very far away. It empties into the ocean." His answer was simple and concise.

She was about to wonder aloud why she hadn't thought to look for anything, but then, she hadn't been totally conscious. "I'm hungry," she said instead. If he had found water, maybe he had food too.

"Now that you're awake, I'll look for something." He draped the cloth over her shoulder and started to stand, so slowly like he was an old man, pulling away from the girl.

She started to stand as well, wondering if it was a mistake as her legs almost immediately collapsed beneath her.

"Don't try to stand. Wait here. You're not in shape to be wandering around like that. Rest. There's more water if you need it." His voice was so sincere, so serious.

She nodded. "I'll wait here." It was actually surprising that she could even speak at all, but that water had done all the wonder in the world for her. Even though her throat still hurt, she could at least manage words without sounding like she was part frog.

"I think I saw some sort of fruit by the river. I'll see what I can find."

She watched him move off into the darkness and wondered absently who he was. Maybe she'd find that out once she could remember who she was.

* * *

She was asleep when he returned, though she looked peaceful this time, not the fitful half sleep she had been in before. He set the bananas he had managed to pull down in the sand and sat next to the sleeping girl.

He noted that she had finished off the water he had left and was clutching the still damp cloth to her chest. Thankfully she was breathing evenly, deeply, and her skin was cooler to the touch than it had been when he had awakened to find her sprawled out in the sand.

Whoever she was, she was strong. The condition she had been in... she probably should have been dead. The only thing that had saved him from death was the fact that he had been in some shade. Some investigating had revealed where the girl had been, apparently unconscious on the beach, right out in the open. The print of her body hadn't quite been washed away by the waves.

He couldn't recall a name for her, but she must have been some sort of acquaintance. Maybe. Not that it mattered since they were the only two people around it seemed.

Gently moving the girl to an area he hoped would be shaded then sitting next to her again, he grabbed one of the green bananas and peeled it. Eating it slowly, he pondered what could have happened to put the two of them on the beach together. The fact that he couldn't remember anything didn't help either.

There had been no sign of wreckage, nothing that might reveal how they had gotten there or gave any hope that there might be more people on the island. He hadn't gone far from the beach to positively say that there was no other human life there, but he could guess.

Either way, once the girl was healthy enough, once he was for that matter, they would make sure to explore the island to their satisfaction. He didn't want to live on a diet of bananas

alone.

Finishing the banana and discarding the peel, he reclined in the sand and stared at the sky. The stars were familiar enough to see, but they looked strange otherwise. He knew one thing: he was very far away from home.

* * *

The images in her dream were vague, but unsettling. Lots of people with hazy faces and names she couldn't remember were all around her. There was something huge, something evil there as well, and it caused her to tremble. Then there was brightness, a light of such strength she didn't think possible. And then nothing.

Waking up was a nightmare in itself. All her memories were gone, simply vanished. She had no idea why, she had no idea where she was, she had no idea about anything except that she was pretty damn miserable.

Sitting up slowly, already sweating in the heat, she looked out from under the plants. Hoping to see something, anything, her meager hopes fell when she saw the blue staring back at her. Nothing.

She wanted to cry, wanted to cry at the unfairness of the world and yell and scream her hatred out. But something inside her would not allow such a weak show of emotion. Something inside her prevented her from losing her control so utterly.

So instead, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to somehow flush the bitterness from her body. Surprisingly, it worked, and while she was still angry, she felt under control. Exhaling heavily, she opened her eyes and prepared to…

A small smile made its way to her face when she saw the dried out gourd filled with water and a bunch of bananas. She would have to remember to thank her companion, whoever he was. And he was indeed her companion in this little adventure. Until she figured out what was going on, she would need to rely on him.

That was when her hunger reappeared in full force. Hands suddenly shaking, she grabbed the bananas, even foregoing the water, and broke one off. She peeled it as quickly as she could,

it almost falling from her hand, and once the peel was gone, practically shoved the entire thing into her mouth at once.

She didn't taste it, didn't need to because she was already peeling the second one. He had left her half a dozen, and within minutes, they were all gone. For the time, her hunger had been partially satisfied. She would need more food shortly, but for now…

She picked up the water and drank it down, appreciating it differently than the way she had last night. It had been life then, but now, it was a simple joy. Her body practically sang with

health as she downed it, and she knew she wouldn't need to consider wandering off into that field of blue again.

Her quest to stand wasn't as bad this time, her legs had some strength to them, but she was still a bit wobbly. Yet, to be standing and not feel like her legs were rubber... She sighed with

relief. For some reason, the idea that she might not be able to stand again had passed through her mind. That kind of weakness, she would rather die than live with.

"Good, you're awake."

She looked over and saw her companion walking out of the greenery with an armful of fruit.

She waved at him tentatively, not sure what to say. She didn't know his name, what kind of person he was... The only thing she knew is that he had saved her with that water. "Hi," she said simply.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked, noting the pile of banana peels.

"Yeah, I think I am. And I... Um..." She blushed, not sure how to put it delicately. Or at least so she wouldn't embarrass herself.

He looked at her strangely for a moment, then understanding dawned on his face. I will fetch more water until..." He trailed off, unsure how to finish. Instead of prolonging the awkward moment, he set down the different fruits he had collected, picked up the gourd and headed for the river.

Sighing with relief, not sure exactly what she was so nervous about, she went a bit into the trees to do her business.

* * *

"Here, you've got a cut on your arm." She kneeled behind him as he was eating a fruit with red skin and sweet meat. It was on the back of his arm where he hadn't noticed, and was already angry red. There wasn't anything she could do to help heal it, but she could bandage it just in case.

She tore one of the sleeves off her shirt and wrapped it around his arm, then tied it snugly. "There. That should help a little."

"Thank you. More water?" he offered.

She nodded and accepted the gourd, almost pulling her hand away when their fingers brushed against one another innocently. She blushed and took the gourd, avoiding looking in his eyes. Sipping the water, she looked out at the ocean, the waves lapping at the beach in a hypnotic rhythm.

"I think that we should make an effort to explore this island before we... give up. What if we sat here and there was some sort of resort on the other side?" he suggested, looking behind himself at the rather daunting looking jungle.

Nodding, she said, "Yeah. I don't know how much longer I can look at this beach before..." And that hopeless blue void.

"Agreed. With no sign of wreckage, I can't believe that any sort of rescue party will be out here looking for us." He looked over at his companion, hoping he wasn't being too nihilistic. "Are

you feeling well enough to walk possibly a long distance?"

"I think so. I just needed some water and something to eat. I'm feeling a lot better now." She finished off the water in three large gulps and stood up abruptly. No, she couldn't stand looking at that blue any longer. "Well?" she asked, looking down at the young man.

He looked up at her, rather surprised. "You mean... Now?"

She nodded, a confident smile on her face. "I want to get away from this beach, the ocean. I'm ready... Now."

"Then, I guess we go." He finished the piece of fruit he was eating and stood up, brushing the sand off his tattered clothing. "It might be best to follow the river since we have no way of

carrying fresh water," he suggested.

"Good idea. We'll probably see animals along the river too. Maybe we can catch some." As her body felt refreshed, her mind did too. It was quickly coping with the reality of the situation and trying to think of ways they could survive.

* * *

It was hot and humid, but the trees shaded the two from the sun. They were lucky in that respect as they were both without any sort of covering for their heads. That was the greatest danger now as they followed the river upstream, deeper into the jungle.

The two didn't talk, the only noise coming from them was the heat-labored breathing as they made their way through the brush. Footing was slippery with the muddy ground and fallen leaves, causing the two to often cling to trees to keep from falling or going into the river.

There was one point, a small waterfall, where the two were making their way up the large stones that made a natural stairway, that something... odd happened.

"Watch your footing. These rocks are slippery," he warned as he slowly climbed onto the next rock. He looked back briefly.

"I know." She was concentrating on her feet, the trees overhead casting partial shadows on the wet rocks, making footing even more treacherous. She swore under her breath as her foot

slipped and she momentarily lost her balance.

He looked back at her quickly. "Are you OK?" He took another step, meaning to plant his foot on the next rock, but missed. His foot slid off the side, and he was suddenly teetering backwards, about to plunge to the shallow water and rocks below.

Looking up at the sudden movement of flailing arms, she was frozen. Frozen for a heartbeat while her mind determined just what she could do to save him. Her body acting on its own, her legs propelled her upward where her hand latched on to an overhanging branch. The momentum swung her forward where she was somehow able to grab her companion's hand. She turned her body in mid-swing and let go of the branch, landing lightly on her feet on solid ground

and pulling him with her.

He was jerked forward where he tripped over a protruding root of the same life-saving tree and tumbled into his savior. The two of them fell to the ground, chest to chest, him on top of her,

their faces inches apart.

They stayed in that position, each of them genuinely surprised, before it suddenly occurred to him what was pressing into his chest and he scrambled to remove himself.

Breathing heavily, but not because of the heat, he stood up and backed away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

Standing up not as quickly, slightly winded from the fall, the hero of the moment brushed herself off even though there wasn't anything on her. "It's..." She started shaking her head. "No problem. Don't worry about it." She exhaled a bit shakily and laughed a little.

"Whoo. That was a close call, wasn't it?" she said loudly, looking up and smiling.

"Yeah," he answered, looking back at what he would have landed on if she hadn't caught him, "it was. Thanks again."

Trembling a little, she tentatively patted his arm. "We've got to stick together, right? I didn't want to lose you so soon."

"I didn't want to be lost so soon." He was standing, but he wasn't sure his feet would allow themselves to be lifted from the ground at the moment. One of the most surprising things, besides

the amazing show of athleticism, was the way his companion, his... friend? It was the confidence she was showing.

When she had first awakened, he had been so afraid that she would be helpless, useless, expecting to be catered to, but she was showing herself to be much different. She seemed more capable than him, only hindered by her injuries. There was no doubt that when she was recovered, he would be hard-pressed to find anything in which she needed his help.

"We should keep going," she said, interrupting his thoughts. She looked up the river, the path it was cutting partially obscured by trees, and nodded. "At the speed this water is

traveling, there's probably some pretty sizable hills at least."

"You're right. Maybe going to a higher elevation will get us out of this heat a little." Thankfully, his body was convinced it was back on solid ground and was ready to get moving again. "Maybe we should keep a little farther from the river this time," he offered.

"Yeah, the footing'll be better, but the plants..."

He was already coming up with a minor solution. He broke off a sizable branch, the wood still moist and green, and pulled off the branches. "This'll work a little. Better than nothing," he said smiling, looking at the implement he was holding.

"Now we've got a plan... Some plan." She snorted and kicked a rock into the river.

* * *

The pair followed the river, but this time, they were at a safer distance. The brush wasn't as thick as they had feared, and only the occasional tall bush got in their way. The sturdy whip-

like branch being used to clear such nuisance vegetation was working quite well.

"That was a pretty good move you did back there. Are you a gymnast or something?" he asked, whacking some leaves aside.

"I don't know. It felt like my hand was going to slip off that branch the entire time." It wasn't saying much, but that was the most afraid she could remember being.

He shook his head, and she knew it was with disbelief, maybe a little awe. "Like I said, it was a good move. Great, actually... Uh..."

"What is it?"

"I was just wondering... what should I call you? I feel kind of uncomfortable not even knowing your name," he said, pausing for a moment.

"Oh." She tried to dig up something, anything from her memory that might tell her who she was, but there was only a maddening blank. She growled with frustration. "I can't remember!"

He blinked. "You too?"

Oh no. "Don't tell me you can't remember anything either..."

To her dismay, he shook his head. "I remember waking up on the beach, and smelling the ocean, and wondering why I was here. Everything before that..." He shrugged. "I feel like a newborn babe, save that I can talk and walk."

She sighed. "Damn. I was hoping that maybe you knew who I was, or what we're doing here." Again she tried to seize the memories, and again found only an unnatural hole, like a tongue probing a missing tooth. "I guess... well, I know what we're speaking is Japanese, so that's probably where we're from."

Frowning slightly, he stared at her. "I do think I know you. There's something just out of reach..."

...no! i won't let it hurt aka…

He blinked, shook his head slightly.

...i lo...why does she hate me...no! akan...

"Akane?" he said, hesitantly. "Are you Akane?"

Her eyes widened. "Akane... Akane..." The word had meaning, it was important, it fit her…

...akane, teased a male voice, uncute tomboy…

"That must be me," she said wonderingly. "I'm Akane." The sound of the name was strangely comforting, and she repeated it again. "Akane. I have a name."

"I'm happy for you," the boy replied, amused. "It suits you. Fiery."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "So what do I call you, Mr. Nameless?"

Shrugging, the boy slashed at another stand of vegetation with the stick. "I don't know. But if I know who you are, it would stand to reason that you know who I am."

That made sense. Frowning, she concentrated on his face, trying to fit the image to the hole in her mind, trying to call it back…

...why you! i'll

...ranm…

She shook her head, a wave of dizziness washing over her. "I think we were sorta friends, but we weren't. You liked me, but you didn't. I can't... it's hard to tell."

He glanced back at her, slicing away more foliage as he did. "If I was your friend, do you remember a name? Someone who was your friend, who was angry and not angry at you?"

...friends...

...uk...no! no!...

...no! don't! not for me! no! my fault!...

...ukyo!...

"Ukyo," she gasped, sweat streaming down her brow. "Ukyo, jumped in front of me, I fell, jumped in front of me..."

His eyes widened, the name echoing in his ears, the description rising from his mind…

...no! hellthing, i won't let you hurt aka...

...dived in front of her, weapon raised, burning searing flame pain screaming...

"Yes... yes... I jumped in... you didn't want me to..."

"Ukyo..."

The name surfaced again, with some great feeling tied to it. "I suppose I am. Ukyo. Yes." It sounded good in his ears, now that he said it. "A fine name for a man." He frowned, feeling something wrong with the statement, then shrugged. "I'm Ukyo, of the Ku..." He blinked, the word slipping away. "Of something," he finished lamely.

They stared at each other for almost a minute, pale and shaking.

"There was some sort of fight," Akane said slowly.

Ukyo nodded. "I don't remember much." He shuddered. "I do not really wish to, at the moment. I think perhaps we should continue exploring."

She nodded. "Anything to get off this smelly rock. If I have to have no memory, I could at least be somewhere comfortable, damn it."

Chuckling, Ukyo swung again, looking back at Akane as he did. "This certainly is no..."

"Ukyo!"

He stopped, alarmed. "What?"

Akane said nothing, just pointed to the tree that was slowly toppling over. The tree he had just sliced in half. With a stick.

Slowly, Ukyo looked down at the branch he held.

"What... how did you..."

He shook his head. "I... I don't know..."

"Whoa," was all Akane said in response.

"Um..." The uncertainty in Ukyo's voice was obvious. "Maybe we should... just keep going." He was giving Akane a weak smile, but she was still staring at the stick in his hand.

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he dropped the stick to his side, drawing her attention back up to his face. "Let's go," he said a little more harshly than he meant to. Turning, he ignored the fallen tree in his path and started walking.

"Whoa," Akane said again quietly before following.

* * *

They followed the river until it started to get dark. Neither feat that had been performed earlier was repeated, and each of them was secretly happy at that. Something so... so freakish was unnerving.

Akane openly watched Ukyo to see if he might repeat whatever he had done before. He seemed to treat the incident like it hadn't even happened, but Akane knew there was something more to him than what she could see.

Sometimes, when she was watching him, she would catch him looking back at her. When their eyes would meet, he would quickly look away, turning his attention back to the path they were cutting through the vegetation.

For some reason, this brought a small, secretive smile to Akane's lips. She wasn't sure why, but those stolen glances were things she found a little scandalous, a little daring, and quite... exciting.

"I think we should stop for the night," Ukyo said, leaning against a tree, the stick still held tightly in his hand, like it was fused with his flesh.

Looking around doubtfully, Akane shook her head slightly. "Right here?" she asked.

"Unless you have a better suggestion." It was evident that Ukyo was taken a bit aback at her rebelliousness.

Akane looked around, then eyed a tree. "I think I do."

Ukyo's knuckles turned white as he gripped the stick. Whatever Akane was planning, it couldn't be safe.

Tentatively hugging the tree's trunk, Akane looked up, then with ability that seemed inherited from a double jointed monkey, she shimmied up the tree. At the top, she surveyed the area through the trees.

"There! A little bit up the river, it looks like a clearing or something," she called down. Peering down at Ukyo, she continued, "I think it'd be better if we went to the clearing instead of stopping here."

Barely able to see her face up in the tree, Ukyo nodded, "OK. You can come down now," he said nervously.

"Right." Instead of climbing back down, Akane untangled her legs from the leaves and stubby branches so they were hanging in mid- air. Lowering herself slowly, gripping the same branches tightly, Akane began to drop from the tree.

Seeing this, Ukyo started waving his hands, actually setting the stick down. "Don't do that! You're going to..."

Akane released her hold and dropped down, almost landing right on Ukyo. She landed on her feet with a small grunt of exertion, but Ukyo crumpled to the ground, groaning.

"Oh... Oh crap." Akane kneeled down next to Ukyo and patted his cheek "Ukyo? Ukyo, are you OK?"

"Yuh... yeah. I'm fine. Just caught me by surprise." He sat up slowly, rubbing his head a little.

"Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"No, really, I'm fine." He got to his feet, Akane helping him, and grabbed his stick again. Receiving a curious look from Akane, he shrugged. "I just feel better with it." He hefted it experimentally. "It doesn't feel quite right, but a weapon in my hand..."

Akane nodded. At the moment, she was thinking how a weapon in her hand might feel better. "Why don't we get going. I don't feel comfortable in this jungle when it's getting dark like this."

Nodding and recovering his breath, his stick held comfortably if a tad awkwardly, Ukyo set out with Akane at his side.

They walked for 15 minutes more, the sky darkening overhead, stars taking the place of the glaring sun, until they reached the mysterious clearing. And mysterious it was. But maybe more like... unnatural than mysterious.

There simply wasn't any natural way for a clearing of the sort the two were standing at the edge of to exist and actually maintain itself in a jungle. It should have lasted for maybe a

month before it was completely overgrown, but here…

There was an easy way to tell that the strange clearing was considerably older than it should have been, and that was the large pillar that was sitting in the middle of it. Even from 75

feet away, it was obviously ancient, looking just like a prop from a movie.

It was formed from some sort of dark gray stone, one giant, unbroken piece, and it had been brutally weathered, that much was obvious. But the most telling thing about it, the one thing that told them the clearing was older than it should be was that the stone was bleached, sun bleached.

It was easy to tell the stone's original tone had been very dark, but sitting in the sun, day after day, even it couldn't resist and had lightened under the constant rays.

"What's that?" Akane asked in a whisper. Why she was whispering, she didn't know, but it seemed appropriate.

"I don't know. It's... It's..."

Akane nodded. It was eerie, the way it had such a dramatic presence even in the darkness. She had a weird feeling that the night was when its presence would be most powerful, only muted by the sun. "I'm not sure this was a good idea." She was getting the weird feeling, like a wave of invisible goosebumps, that they were being watched, like the night was alive and watching them.

"It'll be fine. There's nothing to worry about." And he knew it was the truth, but he sure didn't feel that way.

The night did have eyes and it was most definitely watching the two. It watched them with multiple pairs of yellow, feral eyes that moved with the speed of the wind and with the same stealth.

Akane and Ukyo slept fitfully in the mooncast shadow of the pillar, unaware of the encroaching danger. If Ukyo hadn't been a light sleeper, they possibly both would have been dead before they could have further considered their chances of rescue.

Upon waking, Ukyo's hand went groping for his makeshift weapon automatically. It was only a moment after that he heard the noise, a soft growling. Instead of bolting upright, he moved his head slowly to look off to his right. The source of the growling was there.

And the smell, the smell of death and decay... Eyes that seemed to shine with their own inner fire, nearly glowing were not more than five feet away. There were others as well, all with the same ferocious glares of bloodlust.

Ukyo didn't know how many there were, but he knew he had to fight them. If he didn't, he and Akane would be little more than scraps of flesh in the morning. "Akane," he whispered, hoping it was enough to wake her.

"I'm already up," she answered. No doubt, she had already assessed the situation and knew it was dangerous.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"We don't have a choice." And then she was up like a shot, fighting, and he was hypnotized by the way she moved. "We kick ass!"

Ukyo was shaken from moment of admiration when several of the beasts next to him joined the fight against Akane. They charged over him, drawn by the motion of the girl. Without even bothering to check how Akane was, Ukyo rolled to his feet quickly and started swinging. Now he just had to hope the stick would be enough to scare the beasts away.

They seemed to ooze out of the darkness, their slim, ragged bodies seemed to absorb any light directed at them. Except for their eyes. Whether it was a trick by Ukyo's mind or something supernatural, he was drawn to the yellow glow in their eyes. And so was his weapon.

When one moved in to attack, fangs bared and quite visible even in the dark, he swung downward and struck the beast on the top of the head. It let out an abbreviated howl of pain, then

dropped to the ground.

There was no time to consider whether he had just killed it because the others were beginning to attack, and they in turn were joined by more forms from the dark.

It was about then that Akane wished she had something to start smacking the little monsters with. She was doing adequately with her fists and feet, but her reach was sorely lacking. The animals, wild dogs, drawn by their scent, had to be almost upon her to take care of them effectively.

And the fighting was a necessity, but when her fist impacted with bone, and there was a crunching noise, like the sound of firecrackers, it made her almost sick. A weapon would have made it much more impersonal. The kick, even in bare feet, that snapped a head back and broke the neck…

Something seemed to fly at her, and her arm moved automatically to swat it away, something wet showering her face on impact. But she couldn't stop. They wouldn't stop. She couldn't die. She wouldn't allow it.

The tide of living darkness seemed to ebb, and then as quickly as they had attacked, the dogs fled. Their prey hadn't been as vulnerable as it had appeared, and it had hurt their numbers deeply. It might be a time before they returned in an attempt to taste of their flesh, but they would return.

Ukyo and Akane knew it.

"I think maybe a fire would help," Akane said, panting slightly. "At least, I don't know... At least..."

Ukyo nodded and understood. It would be a comfort even if it didn't serve any other purpose. He looked around in the night and had only one question. "How?"

Akane laughed a little. "That's the sticker, isn't it?" She walked around to the other side of the pillar, away from the bodies of the dogs and sat down heavily in the grass. If she never had to repeat a fight like that, it would be too soon for her.

"Akane, are you hurt?" Ukyo asked, crouching at her side and putting his hand on her shoulder. He leaned the stick up against the pillar and patted her knee.

"I'm fine, just a little tired. Just... tired." She leaned her forehead against her knees and sighed heavily.

Ukyo looked at her, trying to determine if she was actually hurt, and when she seemed only... tired, he decided a fire was necessary. "Right, I'll try and get a fire started for... something."

Try. That was the important word. Just how he planned on making a fire in the middle of the night, in the middle... well, kind of the middle of a humid jungle where everything around him was green, and when he had no idea where to even begin looking... The idea of a fire was starting to look like wishful thinking.

It took him one trip around the pillar in a wide circle to figure this out, and then he returned to Akane. "Um, I think the fire is going to have to wait," he said sheepishly.

She laughed a little, not lifting her head. "I'm not surprised. We don't seem to be much into survival, do we?"

"I suppose not. Maybe we'll do better in the daylight." After they'd had a chance to recover from being attacked by a pack of wild dogs.

Smiling grimly, she glared out at the surrounding jungle. From several places, a pair of red dots glared back.

"Get some sleep," she said, suddenly feeling very tired. "If we're going to be attacked, we might as well grab as much rest as possible in preparation. I'll wake you when it's your shift."

Ukyo nodded. "Wise."

He curled up in the shadow of the hideous column, and tried to sleep. It was a long time before he could.

* * *

Akane awoke to the smell of roast wild dog.

Yawning, she sat up, shaking the stiffness from her bones. In the back of her mind, the images of faces faded away into the dream they had emerged from, like mist in a harsh sun.

Ukyo sat hunched in the shelter of the monolith, roasting a haunch of canine steak over a crude stick spit. He smiled wanly at her as she yawned and wandered over.

"How'd you get the fire going?"

Ukyo smiled sheepishly. "I am a bit embarrassed. It wasn't until almost morning that I noticed the huge stone pillar was, in fact, a huge flint pillar."

Akane chuckled. "Whoops."

"I broke off a fragment to use in a future camp," he said, fumbling behind him to show her. "Staying here probably is not wise..."

"It's stone. How did you break it off?"

He blinked, surprised by the flatness in her tone. "I took my stick and shattered..." Ukyo trailed off. "I shouldn't be able to do that, should I?"

Akane slowly shook her head. "Nope. People don't just shatter stone with..."

...bakusai ten-ket...

...focus, release...

...she lashed out, shattering the stone wall with the force

of her blow…

"Akane? Akane, are you all right?"

She nodded, feeling a little nauseous. "I... I just remembered a little. I can do that too, with my hands." She stared at him helplessly, frustration welling up. "Damn it, we can smash rocks to powder and fight off rabid wolves with bare hands and branches, but we can't remember our own last names. What the hell are we, and what are we doing here?"

Ukyo frowned. "I don't know. Perhaps we were in a shipwreck, and were washed ashore..." He shrugged helplessly. "There wasn't any wreckage on the beach, but I suppose it could have been a small boat, far at sea..."

"And we both happened to have the exact same type of amnesia?" Akane asked skeptically. "I don't think so."

Shrugging, the boy turned the haunch again, sending spatters of grease sizzling into the fire. "Then I don't know. Perhaps we have been drugged, or brainwashed, and managed to escape."

Akane shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe we're secret agents or something." She grinned, poking him. "Hey, Bond, when's that gonna be done? I'm starving."

"It should be finished soon." Ukyo carefully poked the meat with a fire-cleansed stick, noting the result with satisfaction. "I'm a good cook. You'll like it. Wild Dog ala Stick."

She smirked. "Good thing you're the one cooking. I'm terrible at it, it'd be burnt and everything."

Ukyo carefully turned the haunch again. "Who taught you?"

"Well, it was when I was little, and..."

...terrible, but will have to...

...cooking? you, akane this stuff is tox...

...akane, why can't you make something edible for once?

jeez, are you trying to poison…

A low scream ripped from her throat. Shaking, she turned on him, furious, her stomach churning. "Don't you ever do that again. Never. I'll remember when I'm damn well ready, do you understand? When I'm ready." Her face had gone pale, and she could feel the fever-sweat dripping down her face, running into her eyes. That voice talking about her, saying those horrible things, damn it, damn it, go away…

"I'm sorry," Ukyo said awkwardly, worried by the sudden explosion. "I was just trying to help..."

"Well don't. Please." With an effort, she forced her breathing and heart rate to slowly return to normal. "That kind of help I don't need."

"Very well." He carefully removed the haunch from the spit, deftly tore it in two, and handed half to her. "Bon appetit." The nausea quickly faded under the delicious aroma wafting from the steak, and she wolfed into it like a starving animal. It wasn't half bad, she thought, pleasantly surprised. Ukyo actually did seem to be a decent cook.

"Hey, not bad. Best wild dog I can remember eating." It was a pretty feeble joke, but he smiled anyway.

As they finished and wiped their mouths, Ukyo stood. "We shall need to find a spot with adequate protection from the dogs. Perhaps a canyon, or maybe we can build a palisade."

Akane nodded, scrambling to her feet. "Yeah. We'd better get moving; no sense in hanging around that creepy old thing." She shuddered. "Dunno why I wanted to make for it in the first place. C'mon, let's find us a new campsite."

Ukyo put out the fire as best he could manage, not figuring it would really catch considering the conditions. "Should we just keep following the river? Right now it's a pretty good landmark feature."

Akane chuckled. "You don't really have any idea what you're talking about, do you?" she asked, smiling at him.

"Well, not really. But it seems to be a sound plan." He collected the flint pieces he had broken off the pillar and tied them in a piece of his shirt. "I suppose if they get lost, we can come back and get more, but... this not a place I wish to return to."

Akane nodded. "Me neither. Let's go. Up the river is as good a direction as any."

They left the pillar and clearing behind as nature took hold to remove the evidence of their presence. As they entered the jungle again, Akane spared one glance back at the eerie unnatural stone and shuddered.

* * *

Akane jumped up and managed to pull a coconut off the tree. She squeezed it in both her hands, snapping the bristly outer shell and revealing the smooth inner shell. She discarded it over her shoulder and went to work on the inner shell.

Ukyo glanced back when he heard the snapping sound, and whistled appreciatively as the shell broke like so many twigs in Akane's hands. The "milk" spilled out onto the ground as she nearly shattered it and offered him a piece.

"Thanks," he said, reaching for her offer. There was something... not right about things, but he dismissed the feeling. It could have been any number of things, but until something made itself evident, he could only try to relax. Taking the coconut piece, he bit on it and scraped the meat off with his teeth.

"You know," he said, idly munching, "I think we're going uphill."

"I could have told you that about a mile ago." Akane stopped and pointed up through some tree. "If you would have looked, you'd see the stupid mountain right in front of us."

Ukyo stopped and looked where Akane was pointing. There was indeed a mountain looming above them. It appeared that they would be climbing it to some extent very soon. "Well I guess I can't be as perfect as you are. I've got other things on my mind, like figuring out who I am!"

Letting out a disgusted breath, at Akane, at himself, he turned and continued to march ahead.

Akane sighed. Stupid stupid stupid. "Ukyo! Wait up! I didn't mean it like that!"

"Oh? And just how did you mean it then?" he replied, obviously with wounded pride.

"I just meant that... Just... I don't know." She seemed to sag. "I didn't mean it the way I said it though."

"I understand. It's quite difficult for me to... remain calm under the circumstances. Something in me wants to crawl into a hole and stay there, not believing what's happened. I have to... force myself to focus on the reality of the situation and not let myself get... too idealistic."

Akane nodded. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound so... mean. I think it's the heat."

"I shouldn't have been so touchy. I know you didn't mean any harm by it."

The silence was almost deafening as they looked at each other awkwardly.

"Next time, I'll... I'll try not to get so hot-headed about it. I think we're both on edge from all this. Truce?" Akane asked, smiling tentatively at Ukyo.

"Of course. We just need to know when our lines have been reached and take care in not stepping over them." He looked back at the mountain then. "I'm sure we'll find something of interest there."

"Then we go." Akane started their trek again, trying to retain her center of calm.

* * *

The uphill walk was quite gradual, but pleasant. Even in the heat, the pair walked swiftly, comfortably. They didn't speak, but only because of the lack of discussion material. In a different place, they would have looked like two experienced hikers.

They stopped at one point, the sun high overhead, and ate fruit and drank water from the river. Still they avoided talking. There was an unspoken understanding that they simply couldn't get on each other's nerves. If they started to annoy each other, being the only people on the island, things would get very dismal very quickly.

"Shouldn't be too much further and..."

"And what? I don't think we're going to find anything we haven't seen on this island already, Ukyo. I really don't."

He nodded a little. "But we have to try. Even if it's only to look for things that will make... our lives easier here from now on." But no, he refused to give in. Not yet. He would search the island completely until he finally decided there was no other choice. "Let's keep going."

Akane stood, refusing the offer of his hand, and brushed herself off, frowning. "I don't care where it is right now, I just want to be home." She clapped her hands suddenly in an effort to break her out of her self-pitying. "But I am NOT going to get down." She got a fiercely determined look on her face as she looked in the direction they would be heading. "Yet," she added quietly.

It got to be a maddeningly boring jungle. There was so much to see, but Akane and Ukyo didn't care. More than once, they had seen monkeys swinging in the tallest trees, and brightly colored birds calling out, but such wildlife didn't interest them.

Beautiful flowers in every color of the rainbow decorated the jungle, but still, their eyes rested on those sights for moments before turning back to what lay ahead.

And they were both on alert for the appearance of any more of those wild dogs. Even if they didn't show themselves in the daytime, there was still the night, and Ukyo and Akane had no shelter. The dogs would be back.

Akane was getting tired. Not physically tired, but just... run down. A combination of everything just made her want to lay down and relax and forget about their troubles. Even if it was for only a little bit, she was really starting to drag her feet over it.

She watched Ukyo move through some trees and out of her sight. No, things were just not working out, and that scared her more than anything. She should not have been so pessimistic about it all. The two of them should have been able to conquer anything they came across, and that included getting off the island.

The sounds of the jungle all around seemed to mock her. Birds squawking, monkeys hooting, leaves rustling, water rushing…

"Akane!"

Ukyo yelling for her. Akane was immediately sprinting ahead, wondering what was wrong. Damn, she had let him get really far ahead of her. Why hadn't he waited…

Her feet slipped out from underneath her on the wet grass, and she landed hard on her rump. Ukyo was grinning madly at her, and she couldn't help but return it. Why, she wasn't entirely sure, but this was definitely a very pleasant discovery.

Towering above them, water gushed over the cliff and thundered down into the small lake that drained off to form the river they had been following.

Akane was immediately on her feet and testing the water with foot. She shivered happily. "Nice and cool," she said, still grinning.

Ukyo's eyes got wide and his face turned bright red as Akane started to shed her shirt.

She stopped suddenly and looked back at him. "Could you not look?"

He nodded slowly and turned around, his face still red. He listened to the rustle of clothing and was first hit in the head by her shirt. Then her pants fluttered over him and rested on his shoulder.

Akane's whoop of delight was followed by a splash. "It's safe to turn around now," she called.

He turned slowly and the blush kicked back into full force when he saw her treading water, the tops of her breasts just visible. "Come on in. It's great!" she said, splashing some water in his direction.

Ukyo shook his head. "Really, I couldn't. It wouldn't be..."

"Come on. You don't know what you're missing. It feels nice just to be clean for a little bit."

"I really shouldn't. It just wouldn't be proper."

Akane couldn't help but laugh. "You're standing there with my pants over your head and talking about what's proper? No one's going to get upset. Come on." She clapped her hands at him. "Let's go."

Turning a deeper shade of red, Ukyo gave a little nod. "If you could..." He made a turning gesture with his hand.

Akane turned and started to swim to the opposite bank, giving Ukyo a rather surprising glimpse of her naked rear.

Staring wide-eyed for a moment, he quickly averted his eyes and began to remove his own clothing. He carefully folded Akane's clothing, then his own as he removed it, and set it all on a rock. He tested the water with his toe and started to enter it slowly. That was when he noticed Akane had reached the bank and was beginning to turn around.

Yelping, he dove into the water before she got a look at anything private. The cool water sluicing over his body as he swam to the shallow bottom of the lake was incredibly refreshing. Ukyo hadn't really thought of just how hot and sweaty he had been while they had been walking, but he was now realizing how bad it had been.

He broke the surface of the water and smiled. "You're right. This is nice."

"Told ya. You should learn to listen me," Akane said, swimming in a lazy circle around him.

Ukyo briefly ducked under the water and came back up, spitting out a mouthful. "Yeah, it's starting to look that way.

She smiled at him, broad and cocky. "You're getting there." She swam away toward the waterfall, giving Ukyo another water distorted view of her body.

"Are you... doing that on purpose?" he asked, feeling light-headed.

"Doing what?" she called back, her voice being drowned out by the noise of the water.

Ukyo watched her swim away and shook his head, smiling.

Akane swam to the waterfall, the churning water pushing her away, and turned to her back. Floating, she rode the water as it carried her to the river. Arms out, she closed her eyes and relaxed, feeling the most relaxed since she had arrived on the island.

"Don't let yourself go too far or you'll be down the river before you know it."

Rolling over in the water, Akane began to swim powerfully back toward the waterfall. "I'm not going anywhere. This is way too nice." She noticed, but didn't mention the glances he was throwing her way as the water teasingly revealed her bare flesh.

After all, it was different for guys. The naked male chest was nothing that needed to be hidden, but a female chest, breasts, the most natural things in the world were treated like important government secrets. Well, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Unless

Ukyo was some sort of... freak.

She had started to rise a little bit more out of the water, watching Ukyo's eyes widen, when she suddenly sank back down. Nah, it wasn't worth it. That didn't mean she couldn't appraise him though.

That line of thought made her blush for some unknown reason. It was only natural, but it was somehow... wrong. But still... Akane looked up, almost shyly, and scanned Ukyo's bare chest before looking back to his face. And yes, he was definitely built... well enough.

"Akane, are you..." Ukyo couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. It was far too embarrassing, for himself and her.

"Am I what?"

"Nothing. It's nothing." He turned quickly and looked at the waterfall. "Pretty impressive, eh?"

Akane looked at him suspiciously and nodded slowly. "Yeah, it is. How high do you think?"

Shrugging, Ukyo shaded his eyes from the sun. "Maybe 20 or 30 feet. High enough to hurt if you had to jump."

Akane suddenly splashed him and chuckled. "You're so serious, Ukyo. I think you need to relax a little. At least for now."

Ukyo turned and blinked the water from his eyes. His gaze narrowed in false menace. "Is that so?"

"Sure is," she answered, backing away slowly. "Why? You've got a problem with it?"

"Well," Ukyo answered slowly, "not really." He lunged at her, causing a sizable rush of water, but she was quick and twisted out of the way, his outstretched hands grazing her back.

She made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a squeal of delight and tried to swim away from him. But she was beginning to laugh harder and was starting to get water in her mouth. In truth, she was about three seconds from choking.

Ukyo cut through the water, completely submerged, and groped to get a hold on one of Akane's thrashing legs. He was moving quicker than he thought though and his hands slid up Akane's sides.

Her whole body froze at the foreign touch, which only made it worse as one of his hands slid over her left breast. Her eyes and mouth were both wide with surprise, which shifted to outrage.

Ukyo feeling the... not leg in his hand, let go and got his head quickly above the water. Before he had cleared the water away, he was already apologizing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"Pervert!" Akane yelled and slapped him hard across the cheek. She swam away quickly toward one shore, then altered her path and swam beneath the waterfall.

Ukyo watched her go, a sick look on his face. That most certainly hadn't been his intention. He was only being playful and had accidentally... done something really dumb. Sighing, he swam back to shore and sat in the water, staring at where Akane had disappeared under the water.

Akane sat in the little alcove behind the waterfall frowning. Pouting was more like it. Ukyo had grabbed her breast, and she hadn't liked that at all. She was having a fine enough

time before that, but... He had really ruined the mood…

She stopped herself. There hadn't been any sort of mood. She had just been having fun and things had gone a little too far. And it had only been an accident. Still, it had been a bit…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a break in the water as Ukyo came through the powerful falls. Akane quickly covered herself as best she could, still frowning.

Seeing her frown, Ukyo looked down at the water swirling around his waist, partly in embarrassment in seeing her nudity and partly in shame. "I'm sorry. I did something crude and wrong."

Akane snarled at him. "You're damn right you did! Can you just leave me alone for a while?"

Sighing, Ukyo nodded, turned and exited back through the water.

Akane rested her elbow on her knee and put her chin in her hand. The look on her face was less than enthused.

* * *

Ukyo swam with the vigor of a triathlete, powering himself around the lake over ten times. Each time he mentally berated himself for being so careless in his actions. It was just so stupid. What was expected when they were both... naked, swimming, maybe she was flirting with him and he was certainly enjoying it. A stupid accident, totally harmless. Meant to be totally harmless.

He couldn't stay like this. He needed to resolve this between the two of them. Back to the waterfall he swam, breaking through the wall of water, expecting her to be sitting there and

glaring at him. But she wasn't.

He saw her pale shape in the darkness, lying in the cool sand. She appeared to be asleep. Well, they _had_ been in the water swimming for a while. He was feeling pretty close to wiped out himself.

Approaching slowly, he stopped so he was still concealed form the waist down in the water. "Akane?" he asked quietly. He could see her side moving as she breathed, but other than that, she didn't stir.

Daring to leave the water, Ukyo approached Akane's motionless form. "Akane?" he asked again. It was difficult because at the same time he didn't want her to respond, and he did want her to respond. If she was awake and turned to look at him, well... His face was turning red already from embarrassment.

But she wasn't responding, wasn't moving. Getting bolder with sudden concern, he kneeled down next to her and looked over her shoulder at her face. Ignoring the shapeliness of her body, he put his hand on her arm. She was still warm at least. And when he actually saw her face, she was indeed sleeping peacefully.

Somehow, in that way that men always curse and thank themselves for, she had also managed to cover herself with her arm just *so* to tease Ukyo's sudden wandering eyes.

Realizing he was staring at the swell of Akane's bosom, Ukyo jerked his hand from her arm and tore his gaze away. If she needed sleep, then she should probably have it. He headed back into the water, planning on sunbathing a little to dry off. It might have been wiser to wait with Akane, but he didn't think she would take kindly to him seeing her naked, or him being naked with her. And it was impossible to get the clothes in under the waterfall without them getting soaked.

As he entered the water, Akane opened one eye slowly and turned her head. She watched Ukyo walk away, almost clinically. She closely observed the way the muscles in his legs flexed as he found purchase on the slippery lake bottom.

And maybe a little at his back, the way the water from the falls beaded on his smooth skin. Maybe there were other things she noticed, but this little peeping session would remain her secret.

As Ukyo stepped under the falling water, the water up to the middle of his back, the sun shone through the pause in the flow, around his body and giving the impression that he was glowing.

Only when the waterfall had reformed its wall did Akane sit up slowly. Ukyo certainly wasn't the most objectionable looking man she had seen. She thought. Yet, there was something holding her back, some little instinct that stopped her from exploring these feelings within her.

Why, she didn't know, just that any overt actions directed at Ukyo were inexplicably reigned in. Feeling a little frustrated and a lot confused, Akane stood up from the sand, shivering a bit. Suddenly, whether she was mad at Ukyo or he was upset with her, being with another person in the sun was sounding very comforting.

Plunging into the water and under the falls, she swam directly for the shore and her clothing. The sun sparkled magnificently off the water, making the lake look like it had been sprinkled with gold dust. Pausing to admire the coloring, Akane drifted slowly until her feet were able to touch bottom, then she started to make her way to shore purposefully.

She smiled a little when she saw Ukyo asleep in the sand, covered by his clothing. He wasn't dressed, he had just covered himself with his shirt. "Hey, Ukyo," she called, waking him.

He sat up slowly, scratching the side of his head and yawning. He looked at Akane in the water and waved hesitantly.

"Good morning," she said, still smiling. "Truce again?" she offered.

He nodded. "It's all my fault."

Akane shrugged. "It was an honest mistake. Right?"

"Yes. I would never, never ever..."

"All right, I believe you. Besides, isn't it just too great right now to be upset. I mean, look at the lake. It's just beautiful. The way the sun is setting the rays are..." Akane ground to a halt and stared blankly at Ukyo.

"Hm? What's wrong? The rays are what?"

"The sun," she replied numbly. "The sun."

Ukyo tried to get a look at the position of the sun through the trees. "What about the sun?"

"It's setting, Ukyo. The sun is setting."

"So?"

"The sun is setting and we're just standing here!" she suddenly shouted at him.

Ukyo blinked. "I don't... Night." Understanding dawned on him. He stood quickly, ignoring Akane's presence as he started putting his clothes on. "Come one, get dressed. We've got to find some place..."

Akane hurriedly exited the water, kicking up water everywhere until she was standing on the narrow beach. She grabbed her clothes and threw them on, not bothering with her modesty. Survival was a hell of a lot more important than whether Ukyo saw her boobs or not.

"Where should we go?" Ukyo asked, yanking his shirt over his head. "We don't have time to build any sort of shelter..."

"I know! Maybe we..." She looked around, somewhat desperately. Akane slapped Ukyo on the arm. "Behind the waterfall. Bet's on that they won't get back there."

Looking hesitant, eyes worriedly scanning the jungle, Ukyo shook his head a little. "But what about..."

"Do you want to worry about breakfast in bed or surviving?" Akane had a hold of Ukyo's tattered shirt and was yanking on it.

"If we don't have any other choice..."

"We don't. Let's grab some fruit before it gets too late."


	2. part 2

BLISS

part 2

by Mike Loader and Lara Bartram

It was scary. Well, a little scary. Just a bit worrying really. Neither one of them would admit that they were scared. Worried, yes. Scared, no way.

So Ukyo and Akane sat behind the protective wall of water through the night, neither sleeping much. They just weren't tired. That's what they told each other. It had nothing to do with the sound of feet that even they could hear entering the water.

Entering and exiting. Entering and exiting. Pacing at the shore. Waiting at the shore.

"Are you cold?" Ukyo asked at one point in the night, his eyes nearly closed, but his body straight and stiff with instinctual alertness.

Akane shrugged. "A little." She looked at Ukyo, feeling more awake than she wanted. The fatigue on Ukyo's face was clear, and she could almost feel the waves of tension flow from him. "It is kind of chilly, isn't it?"

Ukyo nodded, and Akane shivered a little for effect. "If you're cold, maybe we could use our body heat to keep warm," he offered, eyes closing slowly and then snapping open.

"That sounds like a good idea," Akane replied, knowing he needed the rest a lot worse than she did. Scooting over to sit right next to Ukyo, she leaned on him a little and felt him relax. Akane rolled her eyes at the stupid machismo Ukyo was showing. And yet, the warmth they shared was comforting, even as they both managed to fall asleep with the pounding of the water in front of them.

* * *

Akane woke up, nestled within comforting warmth and protection. Dimly, she wondered where she was, though at the moment, she didn't much care. She felt safe, and that was the only thing that mattered.

The sound of the water constantly pounding down less than 15 feet away finally forced her to wake up. And that was when she discovered she was being held, and quite nicely, in Ukyo's arms, and that was all she needed after the night she had had.

Removing herself as gently as possible, figuring Ukyo needed the sleep, Akane planned on fetching a little breakfast. In the daylight, it should have been perfectly plausible to make a fire on the beach and cook something up. If she could catch it.

Stripping and doing her best to shelter her clothing under her body, Akane ducked under the falls until she was forced to swim. Holding her wet, but not quite soaked, clothing on her head with one hand, she did a clumsy three-quarter dog paddle to shore.

Once out of the water, she shook as much moisture off as she could and redressed. She hadn't forgotten to snag a piece of flint from Ukyo before she had left him, and went about gathering tinder. And there, among the sand and soft dirt, she saw the prints, paw prints of dogs.

They both had known the animals had been there, but actually seeing the ground covered in their prints was a completely different story. The sheer number of them was close to being frightening, and if they hadn't taken refuge behind that waterfall, Akane wasn't sure they would have been successful at fighting the beasts off.

Gathering the tinder and building the base for the fire, Akane tried to think what she could catch and cook. The thought of more meat was practically making her mouth water. Fruit was fine to a point, but red meat, or even poultry or fish was that much better.

The lake had seemed absent of any fish as she thought about it. They had seen birds in the trees, but only songbirds and nothing worth the effort of catching. There were monkeys, but they too were small, and they were fast little buggers.

There was no way Akane planned on hunting wild dogs by herself either. She might actually find them. In large numbers, and that would most assuredly be disastrous. That left her with nothing, but again, that wasn't entirely true.

The two of them hadn't really been looking for food before. She just knew there had to be more on the island than scrawny monkeys, birds and those damnable dogs. After all, what were the dogs eating anyway? There had been so many of them, they couldn't have been feeding off the very few tree-dwellers they could find or catch.

Unfortunately, with the two of them trampling all along the lake's edge, whatever animals might live on the island would not approach the water to drink. That meant she had to go out and hunt. Akane had never hunted before. But there was a first time for everything.

Breaking off a thick branch and crudely fashioning a point on it by rubbing it against a rock, Akane looked at her spear and almost laughed. If she could even catch a leaf on the thing, she'd count herself lucky.

Shrugging, Akane headed off into the jungle to hunt.

* * *

While it seemed fortune spat on them before, this day, it seemed to have changed its mind and was now smiling. Akane had gone less than 100 meters from the lake and was wiggling her way up a tree to examine what looked like a bird's nest.

A rustle in the bushes below her made her freeze in mid wiggle. Looking down, amidst a large, leafy bush, she saw something big and... bristly. Listening, she heard the sound of grunting and smiled predatorily. Just as she thought...

Trying to move around so she could somehow spear the animal, Akane slipped a little and slid a foot down the tree. The rough bark against her skin made her hiss in pain and grasp the trunk more tightly. She fumbled with her makeshift spear and almost dropped it, but she recovered, and her prey hadn't seemed to notice it at all.

It emerged from the bush, black snout directed at the ground, pausing to root in the soft earth. It was bigger than Akane had first thought, looking to weigh a good 45 kilograms, but...

She was almost drooling at the thought of having some "real" meat finally. There wasn't any way dog was going to replace some nice, juicy pork on her list of preferred meats.

The wild pig revealed its full, bristly back to her as it continued to root for food around the tree. If only she could just throw her spear and hit it in the neck...

Letting go of the tree with her weapon hand, Akane hung down dangerously, trying to get the best angle on her future breakfast. A little lower she dropped as the pig moved to the left some. "Damn it, hold still, porky," she said quietly, ready to throw her spear.

Legs fatigued and hand sweating, Akane felt like she was suspended in the air for a brief moment as her hand slipped off the trunk. And then the ground was rushing at her and she couldn't even manage to scream.

The pig, hearing enough noise to know something was going on, jerked its body around and ended up taking the point of Akane's spear in its back, getting wedged between some ribs. Akane herself slammed into the rear half of the pig and drove its body to the ground, squealing with pain and terror.

Rolling off the animal, Akane sat up, half of her broken spear still in her hand. She looked dazedly at the pig, which was at the moment attempting to stand and make its escape.

Neck feeling like it was on a spring, Akane knew she couldn't let this golden opportunity to get away. She crawled forward and dumbly stared at the injured animal, wondering just how she would finish it off. Even if she didn't plan on killing the thing, leaving it in such a shape would simply be too cruel.

Sudden sadness and frustration came over her, and she gripped the struggling animal's head in her hands. Closing her eyes, Akane twisted quickly and felt/heard the satisfying crunch of bones. The entire body shuddered and twitched for a few moments, then fell still.

Akane sat on the ground, just stunned at what had happened. Looking down at herself, her shirt was stained with spattered blood, and she felt some of it on her face. Whether it was from the initial stabbing or what, she didn't know, but... The pig.

She had just snapped its neck like she had broken the stick she had stabbed it with. Just... snap. Absently, she wiped her cheek, smearing the blood, the broken stick still in her hand.

More rustling from the bushes made Akane look up, but her eyes were still partly glazed from the combined shock and surprise at what she had done. Trotting out from under the plant was a group of piglets, each of them plump and colored a dusky black in color. Akane had apparently killed their mother.

She sat, her legs splayed out uncomfortably, blood on her shirt, smeared across her cheek, and stared dumbly at the little black piglets that had come trotting out.

...stupid pig...

She shook her head numbly, a feeling of nausea welling up. That damn, mean-spirited voice seemed to loom out of the hole in her mind, somehow threatening...

A piglet squealed in fear and confusion.

...yo, pig...

...ranm... stop picking on p-chan...

...stupid porker!...

...p-chan, come back...

Her vision blurred, and with an effort she snapped her mind back to the present, stomach roiling. Black piglet... she or someone she knew must have had one, and the terrible, mocking voice didn't like it... had killed it... tried to kill it?

Biting back a scream of frustration, Akane stood, and stared at the bloody main course in front of her. Out of spite, or hatred or confusion, she booted away one of the piglets. "Little bastards," she said, glaring at them.

But she had gotten what she wanted. Akane threw away the broken stick and bent down to lift the pig. It was heavy, heavy enough to stagger her momentarily when she got it across her shoulders. She wanted to throw it down and leave it there for the scavengers when she felt the warm blood trickle down her neck and into her shirt.

* * *

It was inelegant, but it was food. It was meat. That was all that mattered. And when Ukyo emerged from behind the waterfall, clothes held as high as possible when he got into the deep water, he kept his eyes trained on her.

The way she was hunched over listlessly by the fire, poking at the meat occasionally, looked very bad. "Akane, you caught breakfast," he said in an attempt to get some sort of dialogue going.

She simply nodded.

As the water got shallow, he waited for her to politely turn her head so he could exit and put on his clothing. But she never even glanced in his direction. All her attention was on the fire.

Taking slow steps, Ukyo exited the water, holding his clothes in front of himself to maintain his modesty. Never once did she look at him, and that was worrying. He expected her to at least make some sort of comment, whether it was a joke or an insult... Something.

Once dressed, Ukyo sat on the opposite side of the fire, facing Akane. "Akane, what's wrong?" he asked gently.

"Nothing. Eat your pig."

Ukyo recoiled slightly as Akane thrust a piece of steaming meat on a stick at him. Taking the stick, he held it at his side and waited for it to cool. His stomach wasn't even really awake yet, and Akane needed much more attention than himself. "Akane..."

"It happened again, all right?"

Drawing his eyebrows together, Ukyo tried to decipher just what it was she was talking about. "What happened? Were there more dogs?"

Akane shook her head, and Ukyo was surprised to see a tear hit the sand at her feet. "It happened again, and they're all so awful... None of them are good. It's just... Ukyo," she said, finally looking up at him, "I'm scared. I don't know what these memories are, but they're not good."

And then, Ukyo truly was frightened. Akane was getting her memory back? He hadn't experienced a thing. Nothing. His mind was just as blank as it had been before, and now... What if Akane got her memory back and he never did? It would be like being the last one left at the dock as a boat sails away. Akane would be looking back, waving at him.

"Akane, does this mean... you're getting your memory back?" he asked, afraid to hear her answer.

She shook her head. "Just... flashes. Voices of people, things I can't remember... Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy, all the voices and the headaches..."

"Headaches? You're getting headaches? Why didn't you mention this before? What if there's something seriously wrong, a concussion or..." Ukyo trailed off when he saw the tired little grin Akane was giving him.

Blinking slowly, damp tracks still visible on her cheeks, Akane said, "Don't worry about it. I was in good enough shape to catch this pig, wasn't I? Besides, I think it's some weird side effect of whatever caused this amnesia." Her eyes grew steely. "I know it's not some coincidence. This was done on purpose to us."

Ukyo nodded, and as far fetched as it might have seemed initially, he was coming to believe that it was the truth. Unsure of what to say, he began to eat.

Akane turned and looked up at the rising mountain. "We've got to find somewhere to make a camp or something."

"But what about the rest of the island? We don't want to stop in one place before we know what else is here. What if..."

"What if what? What if there's some resort just over the next hill? Or what if there's a boat washed up on shore just waiting for us to sail away in it? Face it, we both know that there's nothing on this island but us. The only thing we can do is..."

Ukyo looked down at the fire in defeat. Akane was right. He DID know that they wouldn't find any sort of miraculous rescue on the island. The dogs alone should have been proof enough of that, because if there HAD been some sort of civilization, a resort, those dogs would have been exterminated before anything else.

When Akane spoke again, her voice was quiet and somber. "I think we should cook more of this meat and when it's done we go looking for a place to make a more... permanent home." She thinned her lips into a white line. It was about the only way she could control her facial expression.

"Fine. Then later, we go." Ukyo's voice lacked emotion, and in his eyes, there was the look of finality. It was as if he was preparing to walk to his death.

Akane had removed a large leaf from something she thought might be a rubber plant and wrapped it around the meat they had cooked. She ripped the rest of her sleeve off, tore it in half length-wise and used the strips to tie the bundle securely.

"We'll continue to follow the river. In any case, we're better off making camp near it, and then working our way from there." And still, Ukyo couldn't muster any positive emotion. But he couldn't think of any good reason to except that they weren't dead.

Akane seemed to understand and was quiet herself. But there had been no point in fooling themselves that they might be miraculously rescued. That would only make survival that much harder if they waited each day for someone to get them off the island.

Without further words, they walked into the jungle.

* * *

Ukyo sighed and looked at the scene before him. It was beautiful in a starkly hopeless way. If they were on vacation, he would have been taking pictures, but he and Akane were not on vacation. The scene only presented itself as the final crumbling of his hope.

The two were standing on the lip of some sort of huge crater at the top of the largest hill on the island. It was so large it actually bordered on mountainous, and gave an unfortunately good view of the rest of the island.

The crater was filled with clear water, which spilled over one edge and formed the beginnings of the river that they had been following. But the crater itself was a mystery.

It was large, but not exceedingly large. It didn't look like any sort of volcanic leftover; the "mountain" was just too small for that. And too rounded. It just wasn't the geology of a volcano. The facts just didn't add up.

Akane started walking around the edge of the crater, looking out to the jungle below them. The look on her face was probably very similar to the one on his own. Now they knew. Not even a faint hope remained. In every direction was jungle, and more jungle, and beyond that, beach and ocean and limitless sky.

Ukyo almost wanted to cry, but if Akane could remain calm, then he would too. He turned and looked out at the jungle below him. There was nothing in that greenery to be happy about, nothing to even be positive about.

"Hey, Ukyo, take a look at this."

He looked up to see Akane waving him over. She was looking down the opposite edge of the crater, and she seemed enthusiastic about something. "What is it?" he asked, approaching her.

"Look down there." Akane was pointing at something among the trees.

Peering down, Ukyo was confused. "It looks like..."

"A building of some kind." She looked at him excitedly. "Maybe we were wrong. Maybe there's someone there."

Shaking his head, Ukyo slowly answered, "No. Look at that. It's all grown over."

"Well, maybe we can stay there then. Either way, we have to go down there and check it out."

Ukyo couldn't argue against that. "I suppose we do."

* * *

Ukyo didn't like leaving the river and told Akane as much.

"I don't know what to say other than if we never leave the sight of the river, we'll never explore the entire island. We may not find anyone else here, but it's still important that we know the layout of the island. We can't be content to just sit in one spot for the rest of our time." She refused to say that they would be there the rest of their lives. She refused to accept that they would be. Even if it looked that way at the time.

But only at the time. They would find a way to get to some other island, something inhabited, or they would get themselves rescued. They simply couldn't let themselves not believe that.

Ukyo followed Akane as they descended the almost mountainous hill toward the strange ruins they had seen emerging from the jungle. True, part of it was leaving the river, which he didn't want to do, but it was the strange ruin as well.

Yes, they needed to explore it, but he really didn't want to. Seeing it at first had been a small spark of hope. Maybe, however improbable it might be, there was someone in that ruin. Maybe there was someone that could get them off the island. But something bothered him about that mysterious ruin. Something, just something, he didn't like at all.

"Just as long as you know I'm not sure this is a good idea," he said, frowning.

Akane looked back at him. "What? It's some sort of ruin or temple. What could be wrong? At worst, maybe it's where those dogs are hiding out, but we can fight them off. I really don't see what the big deal is."

"It may be nothing, but I just don't like it."

Akane shrugged and picked up her pace. It should have been a straight walk down to the ruin, and not too far by the looks of it, but distances were deceiving.

They walked through the heat and the plants and the insects for an amount of time they didn't know, sweating and tiring themselves out. They didn't have the luxury of the river to draw water from when they got too warm or too thirsty this time, and they were starting to feel it.

Hell, both of them looked ready to melt, and several times they stopped and rested under the canopy of the jungle. Even though it was all downhill, their legs were burning with the effort of moving.

"A... Akane, I have to rest," Ukyo said, panting. "It's too hot. I can't breathe."

Akane was doubled over, sucking in air. "Just... just relax, Ukyo. Take deep breaths, don't talk. It's not as bad as you think it is."

Ukyo leaned back against a tree and slid down so he was sitting on the ground, his forehead resting on his knees. "I didn't think it would be so hot if we got away from the river."

Akane nodded, sweat dripping from her shorn off hair. "Neither did I. Maybe..." Maybe this and maybe that. Maybe a golden horse would gallop out of the trees and give them ride. Or maybe a talking lion would give them a wish.

Ukyo waved his hand absently at her, and she stopped speaking. There wasn't much to say.

"Ukyo, we can't wait until dark."

He nodded. "I know." He stood slowly, his face looking haggard and drained of strength. His entire body felt like a rusty gate, stiff and creaking, like it might fall apart at any moment. "Let's go then."

That small amount of movement, standing, had him sweating and short of breath already. And when Akane stood, he could see she wasn't any better. "Quicker we get this over with, the quicker we can rest, right?" he asked.

Akane nodded, her eyes looking almost glassy. She wasn't sure she could keep it up. "It can't be much further, right?" she asked. "Not much further. It can't be." She wasn't sure she could make it, but it was something more than that. She was mentally unfocused, unable to concentrate on her breathing or her pace, which had tired her out immensely.

The entire time down, she had been huffing and puffing, her footing shaky, legs feeling like they were about to give out. It was almost like she was in a complete fog, mentally and physically. "Ukyo, this is bad..."

"It's not that bad, Akane. It's only a little bit more and then we'll be there. We can take this heat, just until we get there, and then we'll rest. Even if we have to sleep in trees, we'll be fine."

He extended his hand to her, and Akane couldn't even remember when she had decided to sit down. "It's not that," she said, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her to her feet."

"What is it then?"

Akane shook her head. "I just don't think... I've changed my mind. This is a bad idea. We should go back, or around, or something. I just don't think it's a good idea to investigate this place."

Ukyo laughed tiredly. "Come on. We've come this far. It's too far to quit."

They stumbled away from the spot they had stopped, looking like the living dead.

Thankfully, they had only a little longer to travel before they reached their destination. Even though they couldn't see it through the trees, they knew they had made it.

The multitudes of living inhabitants that had been around them at all times before, so noisy, so ever-present, were suddenly quiet. It was like they had entered some dead zone, no sound, no movement, nothing.

Even the plant life was much subdued, and nearly non-existent when they got within four meters of the immense structure, and all but the most basic plant life refused to grow. The grass was short and scraggly, thick blades grew in erratic clumps all over.

A few trees had braved the closer proximity to the walls, and they paid a price for their hardiness. Ukyo and Akane looked at the stunted and twisted trunks, almost black in color. The leaves, what few there were, were green and yellow, mottled with black and something that might have been purple, or maybe silver, but didn't have any name they could describe it with.

"Ukyo," Akane whispered, "do you feel a breeze?"

Ukyo shook his head. "Why?"

"Then why are those branches moving?" she asked. She pointed to a tree at the corner of the structure that was waving slightly, almost as if it were greeting them.

"Um..." was all Ukyo said in response. "Why... why don't we take a look around the outside first?" he suggested, looking away from the tree.

"Good idea," Akane replied, and turned away from the waving tree. She began walking briskly in the opposite direction, quite eager to be away from it. That was just another one of those things that Akane was beginning to really dislike about the island.

She knew Ukyo was just as disturbed by it as she was. The look of revulsion on his face had been quite clear. Or maybe it hadn't been revulsion at all, but horror. And fear. Those were two things she could readily agree with.

They followed along one outer wall, idly looking at it, sometimes looking at the surrounding greenery. There just wasn't a whole lot to say about the wall because it was smooth and featureless. Just a smooth, solid expanse of white, pushing back the jungle, staking its claim.

At one point, after they had turned one corner, Ukyo thought he had spotted another wild pig and had gone after it into the jungle. That left Akane alone, and she wasn't exactly happy with it. Hell, she didn't think she'd be afraid of much of anything the island could throw at her, but it was just... creepy.

The lack of any noise, birds, animals, insects even, was so disturbing that she found herself involuntarily shivering. Suddenly getting a look of distaste on her face, she forced her body to stop the worthless shaking and stand still. She wasn't a child. It was unnecessary for her to act as one.

No, she could explore on her own. Ukyo would find her as long as she didn't wander into the jungle. That she could handle. She would handle it, childish fears be damned.

Walking, it was actually a small shape huddled against the wall that caught her attention. It looked to be a log or something leaning against the wall, and on it, she saw something that looked familiar to her.

"Ukyo!" she called out as she walked on. "I think I found a little something!"

Ukyo came bursting from the jungle, panting and sweating. He had not found any trace of the pig he had thought he had seen. "You found something?" he asked.

"Yeah. Up here." Akane pointed to the shape as they approached it. "Do those look like shitaki mushrooms to you?"

Ukyo looked at the mushrooms growing on the log Akane had pointed out. He was still too far away to tell clearly, and he wasn't quite sure what those looked like anyway, but it couldn't hurt to investigate.

They approached the mushrooms, and Akane squatted down to look at them closer. "I think they look like shitaki, but if neither of us can be sure, then we shouldn't..." She reached out to pluck one of the enlarged caps.

"Akane, don't!" Ukyo said sharply. He was standing on the other side of the log and prodding it with his stick. "Don't touch those," he warned, his voice deadly serious.

Akane looked up at him, surprised. "Why? What's wrong?"

He gestured with his stick and what he had found.

Rising and walking to stand next to him, Akane looked down at what he was staring darkly at. Her face twisted into a look of disgust. "Thanks for warning me."

"Think nothing of it," he replied. They looked at for a few moments longer, as if taking in the sight as a warning to themselves, then walked on.

They had left behind, not a log, but the corpse of a large monkey, huddled against the wall. The strange pitch black mushrooms sprouted from its body, a healthy cluster protruding forth from one empty eye socket. A slimy white fungus seemed to pour from its open mouth, like it was a rabid beast. The overall effect was disturbing, the animal seeming to clutch itself with its arms, its face locked in a silent scream of anguish.

Akane and Ukyo continued to walk, wondering when this funhouse of illusions would end. First the tree, then the monkey... What could be next? And could it be any worse? Then they reached the entrance, and a feeling of loathing washed over them. They both knew that it could get worse, and deep inside, they knew it would.

They paused at the "gates" to the immense structure, temple, palace, whatever it was and looked at each other. It was raising doubts in each of them, and the silence was beyond deafening. The two huge pillars of stone, what appeared to be a sort of marble, flanked them.

There were no obvious spots where any sort of doors might have been connected, but it seemed absurd that such a... pristine place would have been left open to the wilderness.

Akane looked at the "floor", composed of blocks of the same marble the pillars were. Indeed, the entire thing seemed to be made of the stone. But... where had it all come from? It was obvious that it hadn't come from the island itself.

Ukyo touched his hand to the smooth stone and ran his fingers across it. "It's one whole piece."

Akane looked at him strangely. "What?"

"This pillar, it's one huge unbroken piece of stone. Something this large... it should be in sections, but it's not." He looked at the outside of the pillar, where it was connected with the exterior walls. Again, there was no seam, no crack, no joint. The pillar and the wall were one huge, solid piece of rock.

"Did you see this?" Akane asked. She was down on one knee, looking with fascination at the marble "tiling" that begin just on the other side of the pillars.

Akane looked up at Ukyo, then back down at the floor. "It's amazing..." She touched it with her fingertips and wiped it lightly. It was smooth, almost greasy to the touch, and she couldn't help but bring her fingers together, rubbing them against one another. "This is weird," she said reverently.

Ukyo watched her, then took a big breath and stepped on to that strange, slippery surface. He expected his foot to slide on the smooth stone, but his footing was as solid as it had been on the dirt. He braced himself against the upright and stepped completely onto the floor of the ruined...

But he couldn't really call it a ruin of any sort. It was in pristine condition when it should have been nothing more than a crumbling pile of rubble. The slightly off-white marble with veins of gray running through it looked like it had been cleaned and polished just the other day, and was cool on his feet, even through his sandals.

"What is this? It sure doesn't feel like any sort of rock I know," Akane said, stepping gingerly from the dirt to the floor. It was hard to concentrate on one aspect of the... temple because it was just so weird in all ways.

There was the weird stone, and the way it was cut, and the perfect condition, and it was just so... eerily perfect. Words just didn't do it justice. Nothing she could say could accurately describe what she was feeling. Awe and fear and amazement and disbelief, but not any of them. It was all those things and more.

"Akane, are you..."

Ukyo's hand on her shoulder made her jump and realize she had been staring at the smallish structure in the middle of the... place. She didn't even know what she was standing in the middle of. "I'm fine, Ukyo," she replied, her voice strangely devoid of all emotion, a fact that bothered even her.

"Well, if you say so." He looked at her more, getting the distinct feeling that there was something very wrong, but not knowing what or why, then went back to his exploration. He decided he would try what they had done with the outside and follow the interior wall. It all seemed obvious enough, a big, wide open space surrounded by walls, but it was hard to say.

"I don't think this is any sort of temple or anything," he said as he walked. "The walls are all completely blank. Wouldn't there be reliefs or something? Engravings? Sta..."

Akane had been walking ever so slowly to the building in the middle of the space, darkly fascinated by its appearance, like that of a tomb. Could it be? But then Ukyo had suddenly stopped speaking. "What is it, Ukyo?"

Akane waited for his reply. There wasn't one. "Ukyo?" she said loudly, and began walking to where he had been along the wall. She got around the intimidating presence of the little building and saw Ukyo standing, frozen in place, staring at something. Frowning slightly, she approached him carefully. "Ukyo?" she asked again. "What's the..."

She saw what he was looking at, and something in her told her to stand perfectly still and not move. The survival instinct in Akane was quite powerful, and what she saw was something she couldn't punch and break, or something Ukyo could fend off with his stick. What she saw was... an abomination of nature.

A statue made of dark gray stone, in complete contrast to the white beauty around them, sat in the midst of a stagnant fountain. It was completely, wholly, disgustingly unnatural, with limbs all twisted, and a body perverted against everything natural.

A faceless stub of a head, masked by tentacles and claws and great wings casting a dark shadow across the still water in the fountain basin.

"Ukyo, what..."

...she screamed in fear and rage as the razored pincers slashed down towards her...

"Akane?"

..."AKANE! NO!" the male voice, screaming in rage and grief...

"Akane?"

...ukyo! no! no! my fault! my fault! no! NO!...

Waves of nausea surged through her, and she turned away and retched. For a few seconds she bent and panted, dry heaving, and then Ukyo helped her to straighten. She felt like hell, and her mind felt like something was rattling around inside it, and her head ached like mad...

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"The statue," she finally said. "I've seen it before. It was something horrible, and you..."

...he leapt in front of her, weapon ready, and then it was upon them...

"...and you were there..."

...ukyo! no, god, please no, my fault! my fault!...

"...and something horrible happened to you." She looked away, shaking. "I don't know what."

Ukyo frowned, and stared at the ugly thing, the lurking familiarity rising up as he did. A low throbbing began at the base of his skull.

Remember, he told himself. Remember. Look at the statue. Note the claws...

...akane! it hurt akane!...

...it killed...warrior's death...avenge...

...you will not hurt her!...

Pain blossomed in his head, and a sudden flash of ripping talons, whip-like arms, and rending jaws filled his mind. And a girl, falling apart in a fountain of crimson blood.

"Something horrible happened," he repeated dully. "Something..." He stared at the statue, this time with sickness and loathing.

Akane stood, trembling, looking down at the floor, her hand clenched into a fist. It was the only way she could regain control of her emotions, the only way she could stop herself from breaking the statue into a thousand pieces. She wouldn't do that. It wouldn't accomplish anything.

"Something," she said quietly, her voice little more than a hiss, "hurt people I cared about, and I think that something dumped us on this island without memory." She looked up at Ukyo, tears at the corners of her eyes. Her eyes narrowed as the glanced sideways at the statue. "There had better be something here worth these damned flashbacks."

With a great effort of her will, Akane approached the fountain and statue. She glared at the water, trying to avoid looking at the remnant of some twisted person that would ever deem it worthy of being displayed. Her reflection only made her angrier, the person staring back at her looking worn and bedraggled, her hair just looked awful...

"Ukyo, I look terrible, and I feel awful, and it was all because of this thing. And I want to see my family." She closed her eyes tightly. "I want to KNOW who my family is, damn it!" she yelled.

Ukyo gently put his hand on her shoulder, only to have her shrug it off. "Akane, you don't look terrible," Ukyo said quietly. "And I want to get out of here as much as you do, but I don't think getting all upset at this is going to help."

"I don't care! Whatever happened, I couldn't do anything about it, and look what happened! Look at us!" She turned and glared at Ukyo.

"We are so utterly pathetic, we might as well just sit down and wait to die! We can't survive here anyway, in a stupid jungle, with no food or water, no place to live, no nothing! So if breaking this ugly statue makes me feel better, then I will get as upset as I damn well please! Hear me?" Akane could feel her chest heaving from the anger and self-pity working their way to escape.

"Akane, you... you... Akane, you're beautiful." He paid no mind to her stunned face at his comment. "We will survive on this island as long as it takes for us to get rescued from it. We will." He gazed at her evenly, none of his own fear showing. "I don't even remember if I have a family, so I'm going to do my best to survive so I can go back and see whoever might have missed me.

"Akane, I know you want to do the same. The both of us, we have to."

She stopped and listened to him, his eyes transfixing her own. He was so... mysterious, but then, she was a mystery to herself, so that wasn't too surprising. But still, there was something about the way he spoke that convinced her that he was right. She gave the tiniest of nods.

Ukyo did not smile. He did not even acknowledge her nod. "And if ever I feel I must simply give myself up to this forsaken island, this jungle, it will not be in this... unnatural place," he said, still looking at her intently.

Akane turned her head and looked at the statue long enough to know he was right. The sweetest revenge on any stupid monster would be to go back home and show everyone she wasn't dead. Show them that the monster had been beaten, that it hadn't been able to erase her from life just because it wished to.

She was made of stronger stuff than that, and she knew it. She looked at Ukyo and gave him the beginnings of a cocky grin. He knew it too. "Okay," she said quietly, but forcefully. "We finish checking this place out and then we leave. I get a very strange feeling that we're not exactly welcome."

Ukyo nodded. "I as well. Should we split up, or..."

Akane shook her head. "No splitting up. I don't think it's big enough that we need to. Besides, I... I don't feel as bad if I get those flashbacks when I'm around you. It's like you're my anchor to the real world. Even if I get mad at you, you're all I've got that's real flesh and blood, and not some nightmare flashback torturing me."

She was quite surprised at how good she felt confessing that to Ukyo. It was like it had all been bottled up inside for some strange reason, that she hadn't been willing to reveal such a silly weakness to him.

"I don't think my flashbacks are as numerous as yours. It... it frightens me a little." Ukyo frowned and looked at the fountain of blackish water. "They scare me, because I know something terrible, something really awful happened, but... What if I never remember who I am?"

"Then when we get back home, I guess we have someone fill you in. I'm sure, positive, there'll be someone waiting for us. Someone must know we're not dead." Akane nodded, assuring herself as much as Ukyo.

Hesitantly, Ukyo reached out and slipped his hand into Akane's.

For a moment, Akane didn't do anything, then she closed her hand on his in a show of solidarity. The two it them would make it. They would make sure of it.

They walked away from the statue, the water bubbling gently at their backs, reflecting dully the sun's rays back as something not wholly of this world.

The pair walked across the open space to the back wall, hand in hand until Akane, with a sudden rush of discomforting feelings, pulled free. She stayed at the same distance, but let her arm swing free at her side. Occasionally, their hands would touch, but this was not acknowledged by either of them.

"I just don't get it." Akane ran her hand over the smooth, blank wall. "This can't be a temple. Wouldn't there be something here then?"

Ukyo nodded. "Yes, I would think so, but what about that statue?" He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder toward the statue. He didn't really feel like looking at it any more than he had to.

"I don't know," answered Akane. "None of this makes any sense." She leaned against the wall, getting fed up with the annoyingly strange construct. She was about to start complaining again when she felt the wall behind her shift slightly. "What the..."

Meaning to push off and investigate, Akane ended up putting the needed force on the wall to push it back, revealing a flight of stairs that went down into the ground. She let out a strangled yelp as she slipped backwards into the darkness.

"Akane!" Ukyo yelled, and without further thought, he went down the stairs after her.

Akane tucked her body into as small a space she could manage as she tumbled down what seemed like the world's longest staircase. She covered the back of her head and neck with her hands and arms, saving herself from serious injury. Her body came to a jarring rest as she reached the bottom of the stairs and crash-landed on hard stone.

Slowly sitting up, blinking rapidly, Akane heard Ukyo calling to her. His voice echoed eerily and sounded like it was very far away. "Ukyo?" she answered back. Her own voice sounded strange and alien, echoing in whatever chamber she had ended up in.

"Akane, are you hurt?" he called.

"I... I think so." She could hear his footsteps as he descended the stairs and stood up slowly. "Watch out, it's really dark."

His footsteps slowed with her warning. "You're right. Can you see anything down there?"

Akane looked around, faced with only blackness and shook her head. "I can't see anything." She looked up where she thought the way out should have been, but still there was no light. "Ukyo, how... what happened to the wall that opened?"

"I think it shut automatically. Just wait there and I'll be right down. We can figure out what to do from there."

Figure out.. She couldn't even figure out where her butt was it was so dark. How would they be able to figure anything else out? "You shouldn't have come down here, Ukyo," she called out.

"Why not?" he said, standing almost next to her.

Akane jumped a little with surprise. "Don't do that. You almost gave me a heart attack. Besides, it's pitch black down here, and we have no way out." She looked up at him and scowled. "So how are we supposed to get out of here?"

"Well, I must admit, I'm not totally sure. It is rather dark, isn't it?"

"Thank you very much." Akane was really annoyed at this point. "So how are we..." She blinked. There was a noticeable difference. Akane blinked again. "Hey, Ukyo, I think there's light coming from somewhere."

"Why do you say that? It's still pitch..." He stopped and squinted, looking down at Akane. Sure enough, he could see her. So very vaguely, but he could see her pale skin faintly luminescent in the darkness.

"I have to say, as much as I appreciate this light, wherever it's coming from, I really want to get out of here. I think it'd be a good idea to check out the wall back at the top of the stairs." Akane pushed Ukyo aside and began climbing the stairs slowly.

Ukyo planned on exploring the cavernous room a little, beginning by following the wall around. He touched his fingertips to the wall lightly, and feeling only cold stone, began to walk. Maybe there was a tunnel or something similar they could use to escape.

He got only six paces before the texture of the wall changed from slightly rough-hewn rock to something slick and greasy. Ukyo jerked his fingers away and began wiping them furiously on his pants. Whatever that was, and he could tell it wasn't simply the smooth, oily illusion of the strange marble; this was a physical substance.

Deciding he'd had enough of exploration, at least while he was by himself, Ukyo backed up and went to the base of the stairs. Getting off whatever had been on the wall from his hand was now an obsession, and he spent the entire time wiping his hands off on his pants. "Akane?" he called out.

"I'm at the top, Ukyo. Come up here. I think I've got something," she answered, and again there was that feeling that he was a hundred miles away. Her voice was oddly distorted like he was underwater or something.

Not waiting for, or needing, another invitation, Ukyo started up the stairs as quickly as he dared. It would be just his luck to slip and fall and end up being stuck at the bottom of this seemingly limitless pit.

Several times, for no discernible reason, he looked behind himself, down into the black emptiness. He just knew all was not as it seemed and there was something down there, waiting for the two of them. But then again, the mind had the tendency to play tricks on a person, especially considering the situation.

After what seemed to be hours of speeding up the stairs, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, Ukyo ended up slamming into Akane and smashing her against what had been the way in.

"Hey, watch it, you moron! You could have gotten us killed!" she admonished, pushing him away.

"I'm sorry," he answered, panting. "I just... Something on the walls..."

Akane definitely did not want to know and turned her attention back to the wall. "Here, help me push. I think we can tilt this thing if we try together." She leaned her shoulder up against the wall and felt Ukyo do the same next to her. "Ready? One, two, three."

The two of them put all their weight against the stone, and little by little, they felt it move. Soon enough, with both of them grunting from exertion, the slab slowly swung upwards, impossibly defying gravity.

Not waiting for it to open any more than necessary, the pair tumbled out into the bright afternoon sunlight. They watched their door swing continue to swing upward, until it was wide open, at which time it stopped.

"Whoa. That is... too weird for words," Akane said, looking in awe at the opening.

Ukyo nodded, still gasping for breath. His attention was on his hand though, his fingers where they had brushed through whatever had been on the wall. They were black and green, like they had been severely bruised, and they tingled ominously. He set his stick down, then proceeded to scrub at his fingers with his shirt.

After a few moments, the fungus began to rub off, and after a minute of hard scrubbing, his fingers were clean once again. Ukyo felt intensely relieved, more even than escaping their temporary prison had left him.

He picked up his stick again and suddenly stopped. He looked at it strangely, then at Akane. "Akane?"

"Yeah?"

"You know, we could have just..." He waved his stick around a little and gestured to Akane's hands.

Akane immediately understood what he was implying and smacked herself in the forehead. "You're right. We could have just blasted our way through there instead of forcing it open."

Ukyo stood in the doorway and looked down the stairs. The sun's light only penetrated a little way down, making the surrounding darkness that much more intimidating. It then became obvious why they had been able to see so faintly in what should have been complete darkness.

The darkness beyond the light was lit up, just barely, by some pale glow that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. True, it was faint, but it was enough to reveal the cyclopean room they had been imprisoned in.

He was currently standing at the level of the ceiling, but the stairs, he could barely make them out, seemed to go on and on, down deeper than he had ever imagined. Whatever the room had been used for, was still being used for, it was something immense.

And in that glow, using the near darkness, he could almost imagine the shadowy thing that had chased him up the stairs sitting at the edge of that light...

He shuddered involuntarily, and for a moment, he thought he did see something twisting, curling just out of the light, something dark and wet, connected to something larger... "Here," he said quickly, "let's close this. That way, neither of us will slip down those stairs."

He reached up and grabbed the stone, meaning to pull it back down. "Help me out with this, Akane." He pulled with all his strength, even lifting his feet and letting gravity try its hand, but still the stone would not move.

Akane stood on her tip-toes and took hold, pulling down as well. "The thing practically floated up there," she said, her arms straining with the effort. "And now it won't come down..."

Ukyo spared a glance into the darkness, and this time, he was sure there was something down there, making its way slowly up so that it could...

At that point the door started to slide back down into place, and Ukyo dropped to the ground. He scrambled backwards as the door slowly closed, feeling a rush of cold, clammy wind on his face.

Akane stepped back calmly and watched the door gently shut. As the last of the air was blown out and the rock fell completely back into place, there was a sound, almost like a frustrated sigh. Then the faint seams that indicated where the opening had been seemed to just disappear before their eyes.

"Well," Akane said, wiping her hands together, "glad to be done with that."

"Akane, I... I don't think we need to look around here much more. I mean," Ukyo stuttered when Akane looked at him curiously, "we don't want to take the chance that we'll do something like that again. We might not be so lucky next time and we could get hurt."

She shrugged in response and looked around. "Yeah, I suppose there's not really much more here to see." Not any more that she wanted to see at any rate. Akane reached down and helped Ukyo to his feet. "Yeah, I guess... This just isn't the right place for a shelter. I bet we could make better use of trees and stuff than whatever's here."

It felt pathetic, a weak, sorry excuse, but it was better than actually spending time in the creepy place. "Let's go. We've got to find some place to stay before it gets too dark."

Ukyo nodded and immediately began walking back to the entry to the ruin, not waiting at all for Akane. That feeling that something was waiting in the dark for them clung to him like a thick fog. The horrible, vile statue did nothing to allay that feeling either.

Akane followed, moving slightly slower. She averted her eyes from the statue, but she made no move to hide her curiosity in the innocent looking building. It was larger than a tool shed, and it had a faint design carved into the front of it. It was like a star, with an eye in the center. It was odd, the only sort of decoration in the entire place, and there it was.

She had an irrational urge to reach out and run her hands over it, see what was behind it, but Ukyo snapped her out of it.

"I don't know how much longer we have. They'll be out soon, I think."

They. Akane knew what he meant. She had no desire to battle another pack of wild dogs. She looked away from the engraving and joined Ukyo in exiting the "ruin".

Neither looked back.

Leaving the monolithic leftover of some civilization neither Akane or Ukyo ever wanted to know anything about, it was like a huge weight was suddenly lifted from their shoulders. Or maybe some heavy veil removed from their heads.

Either way, the hot, steamy jungle was a welcome environment after being in that desert of white stone. The natural formation of the plants and animals, all the sounds, that was so much more preferable than the mock representations.

Ukyo looked back once as they traveled north. He shivered a little and said, "I'm glad to be out of there. That is most definitely a place I don't wish to ever return to."

"And I agree. Whatever is going on in that place is not something I want to deal with." Sure they had escaped from that big pit, but it wasn't just that that bothered Akane so. There was an incredible air of foreboding, the smell of decay and impurity was too much.

Not finding the urge to look back herself, Akane continued walking. After all, they had far more important things to worry about. Namely, finding a relatively safe place to spend the night and not get mauled by dogs or irate pigs.

"Hey, Akane, do you still have that meat? I think I'm hungry," Ukyo said suddenly as they pushed through the jungle. His stomach was churning and grumbling, which he attributed to hunger, but could have been his body's way of protesting what he had just gone through.

Akane fumbled with her shirt, the package of meat wrapped in leaves bundled clumsily in it. Somehow, it hadn't fallen out when she had tumbled down the stairs, and that was a minor blessing. She sighed a little as she unwrapped it and saw that it looked fine, but she wasn't sure exactly what she had expected to be wrong with it.

The idea came to her suddenly. Why she was worried about the meat going bad for no reason was that the entire island was "bad" in some way. It was beautiful, but there was something corrupt about it, deep down in the soil where they couldn't see.

She handed a piece of meat to Ukyo, then started to eat some herself. She hadn't been overly hungry, but there was a strange weakness in her legs and a dizziness that accompanied her that she hoped would be cured with a little food.

And Ukyo walking as fast as he was wasn't helping much. "Hey, slow down a little. I'm not feeling so good," she said. It was the dizziness that did it. She just couldn't get things around her properly in focus. Even when Akane stopped and leaned against a tree, her entire body seemed to rock back and forth.

"Akane, what's wrong? Are you going to be sick?" Ukyo asked and placed his hand gently on her shoulder.

"No, I'm just... just dizzy," she responded and closed her eyes. That was even stranger because she still felt the sensation of rocking, but without seeing the jungle around her, it felt more like she was floating.

Ukyo looked at her. Her face was a little pale, but otherwise, she appeared perfectly fine. "Do you need water? More food? What?"

Akane shook her head. "I don't know. I just feel..." She tried to stand, letting go of the tree, and started to fall over.

Ukyo was there though, and he caught her in his arms. He felt her forehead while she continued to mumble about being dizzy. He couldn't tell if she had a fever, and it was possible that it was just heat related... Either way, they still had to get to some sort of shelter and their precious daylight was running out.

"I don't know where, Akane, but we have to go," he said and lifted her. Cradling her against him, he walked at as brisk a pace that he could manage, trying hard not to trip over any treacherous vines and roots.

The problem was, he wasn't in really that much better shape than Akane. If they couldn't find a place... Ukyo didn't really want to have to spend the night in a tree, huddled against the trunk, not sleeping at all...

But he wouldn't stop, not until he had to. That was one thing, he refused to give in. There could be shelter or something just past the next group of trees. Or through the next thorny bushes. Or... Ukyo was on his last bit of willpower, and Akane was a dead weight in his arms, making his entire body feel like lead.

The sun dipping lower in the sky, turning what was visible overhead a dusky orange, bordered with purple, couldn't make him go any faster. Ukyo was simply exhausted.

And that was when he was answered. Indeed, past a group of trees adorned with vines that acted almost like a curtain, it was their sanctuary from the wild dogs. Up in a massive tree before him, supported by surrounding smaller trees, there was an old Zero.

The metal was dull with age and a good portion of the paint had come off, but the rising sun was still visible just behind the cockpit on the side and on the single intact wing. And it was rather surprisingly nestled in the tree, looking like it had actually landed there, instead of crashed.

Ukyo gently set Akane down and tried to rouse her. "Akane, I need your help. I can't get you up there alone." He patted her cheek as she fluttered her eyelids.

"What, Ukyo? What's going on?" she asked, obviously very confused.

"I found a place for us to spend the night, but I need you to help." He took her arm and tried to pull her to her feet. "Come on. The sooner we get up there, the sooner we can rest."

Akane looked where Ukyo was leading her. "Is that a..."

"Yeah, it's a plane." They were at the base of the tree. While it looked daunting, the tree seemed rather well equipped for climbing with nicely spaced limbs for them to grab and step on. "Come on. Climb up."

Akane looked confused. "Ukyo, how did a plane get in a tree?" she asked, slowly starting to climb.

"Right now, Akane, it matters not to me. I only know that if we wait too much longer, those furry little devils will come after us again, and I rather like my skin where it is." He let her use his shoulder as a step as they climbed together.

They got up to the plane's level at the nose and stopped. The engine looked... serviceable for being as old as it was, but it was missing all the blades of the propeller. From underneath, they could see where it was seated in the tree, which had, to their amazement, accommodated the Zero and grown around it.

The other wing was completely gone, ripped off and gone to wherever. Not that any of that mattered because they wouldn't be flying off the island even if they had a 747 ready to go at a moment's notice.

Ukyo tested the stability of it, putting his hand on the smooth metal skin and pushing it a little. It was rock solid, the body not moving at all, and that was good enough for him. "We can sit in the cockpit, Akane. That should keep us fairly safe. Maybe we can even get the canopy working."

Walking like he was on egg shells, Ukyo climbed up and on to the nose of the plane. He looked at the cockpit and was relieved that the pilot was missing and the canopy open. Whatever had happened, the pilot obviously had better sense than to get stuck on the island. Even Ukyo couldn't fault him for that.

"I'll help you up," he offered, extending his hand for Akane to take. "The pilot's gone, so..."

Nodding, looking better than before they had started the climb, Akane took Ukyo's offered hand and joined him on the nose. The two inched back to the cockpit, careful of the footing on the metal body.

Akane got in first and looked at the small space. "There's not room for two people in here, Ukyo." She looked at the instrument panel in front of her and frowned.

"Of course there is. Scoot forward a bit," Ukyo urged.

Akane continued frowning, but moved forward as much as she could. This wasn't going to work; they'd be smashed in like obese sardines.

Ukyo stepped over her and prepared to sit when he looked over the side of the plane. A dark shape on the ground below them moved stealthily back and forth. It was as he feared. "They have arrived. We shall be stuck here until morning," he said quietly.

Akane nodded. Had she expected anything less? She grunted as he sat down behind her, trying in vain to ignore the feel of his body behind her. It was important to keep this purely... professional between them, and that meant not thinking about the man sitting very closely behind her.

And true, they were quite cozy, but not nearly as crammed in to the cockpit as she thought they'd be.

"Um..." he said quietly, obviously uncomfortable with the situation as well.

Akane adjusted the position she was in, wriggling dangerously.

"Akane," Ukyo whispered, "please stop." He had his eyes closed and was thinking desperately of things most mundane.

Akane stopped moving and turned her head. "Stop? I was just trying to..." When she saw the look on his face, him exerting extreme amounts of effort, she wanted to shrink away. "Sorry," she said, feeling about a foot tall. If she thought it was wise at all, she would have gotten out of the cockpit and slept on the wing.

It just didn't feel... right to be so close to each other like that. Not that Ukyo wasn't good looking and all, but she just didn't think they should ever get into such a relationship.

And he was attracted to her, that much was plainly obvious, and possibly under different circumstances she might have considered seeing him. Possibly, but she didn't really think so. He didn't seem to be her type.

"Do you think we should close the canopy?" he whispered, eyes still closed.

"I'm not sure. What if it gets stuck?" she replied.

"Good point. We should be safe here without. Let's just try and get some sleep." Try was the operative word for him. With Akane pressed so close to him, the feel of her body against his… What man wouldn't be thinking of anything BUT the soft curves molded against his...

Ukyo grit his teeth and tore his mind away from that line of thinking. He needed to think of something... 'Miyazaki' floated into his consciousness, accompanied by cute animals, children with round faces and innocence. That seemed to do the trick for him, and soon enough, he was able to enter a light sleep with most thoughts of Akane pushed aside.


	3. part 3

BLISS

part 3

by Mike Loader and Lara Bartram

The sun's light fought its way through the trees to shine down on the sleeping couple. Ukyo was listing to one side, his mouth hanging open. Akane was turned expertly, fitting her body into the small space to lean up against Ukyo's chest.

She stirred slightly, the remembrances of another dark dream finally rousing her. Finding herself nearly clinging to Ukyo, and with the sun risen, she quickly removed herself from the cockpit.

Standing gingerly in the tree, the mammoth trunk easily able to support her on its oddly flattened top, Akane began to do some stretches to get her blood flowing. This also had the consequence of waking her stomach up, and she soon realized she was starving.

The strange dizziness having passed, Akane figured she could go off and find some fruit or something. They had no water, but there was no way of telling how far away that would be.

She climbed out of the tree, not completely trusting her equilibrium, and felt the ground solidly under her feet for the first time since they had arrived at the forsaken temple the day before. Whatever **had** caused that dizziness, Akane could only guess it was the heat and lack of water because nothing else made any sense.

Not that what had happened to them made any sense, just that she preferred to stick with rational explanations for the time being. As long as they found food and clean water before they walked too much in the heat, she counted that it would not return.

* * *

Ukyo woke up and wondered why his neck was so incredibly stiff. When he figured out how he was folded into the plane's cockpit with his head tilted to one side and his arm along the edge... It was easy enough to know why he had a stiff neck, but why he wasn't cramped to high heaven in the rest of his body was unknown.

Akane was gone, but that wasn't his concern at the moment. Until he managed to remove himself from the cockpit without falling from the tree, Akane would just have to take care of herself. She was plenty capable of that anyway.

Daring the pain, Ukyo moved his head around slowly, trying to gently work out the stiffness. The one thing he wished he had was a good massage right then. The two of them had been safe though, and that was the truly important thing. When they got settled, there would be no need to hide in a tree. They would adapt.

A somehow forgotten thought pierced his mind then. But they could be rescued... And as much as Ukyo hated to do it, he shoved the thought away. No, they could not rely on a rescue; they had to rely on themselves.

After some self-applied therapy on his neck, digging his thumbs into the muscle and declaring it good enough, Ukyo stood up in the cockpit and looked out.

Jungle stared back at him.

Sighing, Ukyo got out of the plane and climbed down out of the tree. He was rather amused in a grim way to find that the bloodthirsty canines had not touched his other companion, the stick. He had left it on the ground when he had helped Akane climb the tree, and he was feeling vulnerable without it. Just because the dogs attacked at night didn't mean they weren't out during the day.

He lifted it gently and smiled. It still wasn't the weapon he was used to, but it was more right than nothing at all. Now it was time to locate Akane.

"Akane!" he called out, receiving only the replies of birds. He waited a few more moments before calling out again.

This time, he was answered. "I'm right here!" Akane answered back, though Ukyo could tell she was a distance away. "I'm on my way back!"

Ukyo nodded to himself and investigated the area in more detail this time. He wasn't expecting to find much, but it was hard to say. And as expected, he found nothing in the trampled vegetation, flattened by the feet of the circling dogs in the night. For some reason, it wouldn't have surprised him at all to find out he had ended up in some strange video game, and that food and prizes could be looted from an odd looking rock.

That probably would have made things too easy though, and that certainly could never be. Even the tiniest break, no matter how insignificant, was too much.

Yet, the plane had been a lucky break, a safe place for them to spend the night in relative comfort. There was the pig Akane had caught, and the waterfall... Yes, Ukyo supposed things could have been much worse. Not that he didn't wish them to get much better...

"Here, found some fruit," Akane said as she emerged from some trees with an armful of brightly colored fruit. She was smiling widely, very pleased with her haul. "No water, but this should tide us over for a bit."

She sat with her back against the trunk of the tree and waved Ukyo over. She started peeling a large reddish fruit with dark nodules inside. "These seed things are good, real juicy, but the skin is bitter," Akane said as Ukyo watched her pick out the individual seeds and eat them.

He picked up a ruddy pear-shaped fruit and began to eat it, attention turning back to, well, nothing in particular. They needed some sort of plan to survive on the island, but they had no means of forming that plan. They didn't know what the island looked like, what kind of resources were available, they hadn't established a base of any sort even. They were basically flying blind.

"What do you think we should do next, Ukyo?" Akane asked, taking another big bite of a banana.

"I have no idea. Keep exploring, I guess." He shrugged. "Maybe we'll find something else on this island worth taking a look at."

Akane nodded. "Maybe."

Then again, maybe they wouldn't.

"We should probably get going... North?" Ukyo said uncertainly. He really wasn't up for eating more sickly sweet fruit. He needed something more than meat or fruit.

Akane looked around from her seat on the ground. "North. Sure, sounds good to me." She stood up, finishing off another piece of fruit and wiping her hands on her shirt.

Ukyo stood slower, tossing away a half-eaten banana, and began walking without saying a word. He felt rather grouchy, and small talk was about the last thing he wanted to do right then. If there was a convenient way to remember the location of this tree, that might not be so bad.

It might, in fact, be a pretty good place to build some sort of home base around. They could probably dislodge the plane, maybe use it in some way, then work in making a make-shift tree house. That would keep them up from the ground at night, away from the dogs.

Well, it was a big tree. They'd probably run across it again. If they managed to survive that long. "We'll come back later," he said as they passed the tree.

They pushed through some strangely thick branches, tangled by vines, leaves obscuring their vision until Ukyo and Akane had to finally yank on one vine together. Tugging didn't work, so they pulled with all their strength together.

The vine broke free and brought down a hail of leaves and small branches. Pushing aside a loose hanging branch, the two jerked back in surprise.

Hanging amongst the branches was one skeletal Zero pilot, still dressed in his pilot's suit and parachute. It had apparently gotten caught in the tree on descent, and he had ended up trapped there...

Ukyo grimaced, looking at the pilot's lower legs. They were mere remembrances. Jagged bone protruded out of the shredded pant legs, feet and most of the two lower leg bones gone.

"What do you think..." Akane started to ask, but she knew how it had happened.

Ukyo could make the logical, and gruesome conclusions. The pilot had escaped the airplane, come down and gotten the parachute caught in the tree. He had either been unconscious or it had been night, and the dogs had come. Apparently unable to get out of the harness, or never having the chance to do so, the pilot hung there while he was ripped apart from below.

"Ew," was the only thing Akane said, grimacing at the sight.

"I agree."

The two, eyeing the corpse, moved around it slowly through the hanging branches. Once it was behind them, they both breathed a little easier.

"Out of sight, out of mind," Akane mumbled as they moved off into the jungle. Hopefully it would stay that way.

* * *

"Akane?" Ukyo asked after they had been walking in relative silence for over two hours.

"Yeah?"

"Those flashbacks you had... What were they like?" he asked hesitantly. He was prepared for her response to be not good at all and put a distance between them.

Akane tightened up, her jaw clenching, but said nothing. Eyes focused on the vegetation in front of her, she made no effort to answer, but the question was definitely stewing in her mind. How to answer, if she even wanted to, was the issue plaguing her.

"You don't have to answer," Ukyo added, but it was an afterthought.

Akane looked at him angrily, ready to tell him in no uncertain terms to go to hell, but the strange look on his face prevented her from doing so. It was obvious he knew that she would react unfavorably, but there was also some desperation there, like a cornered animal.

And in fact, weren't they both cornered animals, trapped with no foreseeable escape? If their end came as an accident or disease, who could they run to? There was no one. They were alone, and any memory at all was better than the frightening blankness.

Akane sighed. "I don't know," she said in a voice that seemed small compared to the sounds of the jungle around her. "It hurts. There are things..." She stopped walking and closed her eyes. "Mostly feelings. A lot of pain. Misery. Anger."

Ukyo nodded, cutting through some bushes. "No... no faces? More names?" Anything at all. Anything because there was that bubble inside him that kept threatening to burst. A bubble that held all his memories, and things on the just below the surface of that bubble niggled at his brain.

The name, his name, Ukyo was one of those things, but it didn't quite feel right either. Like wearing two different kinds of socks. They fit and served their purpose, but they were still... wrong.

Ukyo was wrong. Maybe. Or he could just be lying to himself, trying to make sense of things when it just wasn't possible. But Ukyo... That just didn't sit right with him.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Akane. I just..."

She laughed roughly. "Yeah, I bet. You're welcome to them, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon." To bear the weight alone of those memories... Akane would have given her right arm to share that pain with Ukyo. She was already giving up her sanity.

"I really am sorry."

"So am I, Ukyo."

* * *

After everything, their sudden emergence into a relatively wide open space was refreshing. And this time, there was no creepy pillar. There was something else entirely.

On the other hand, there were no flashbacks associated with this, just confusion.

"What is that? It looks like a... a..." Akane shook her head. "It looks like a big mound of crap."

Ukyo approached the massive mound slowly, as if he was expecting it to come to life and attack. From the looks of it, that was a distinct possibility. "I think it's just dirt," he said as he got closer.

Akane shrugged and walked up next to Ukyo with no hesitation. "I'm glad it is just dirt. I'd hate to see the thing that left of pile of shit that big. It'd have to be a monst..." Her face paled as she thought of the statue. "Never mind," she added.

Nodding, Ukyo looked away from the mound. "Agreed." Strangely enough as he looked around, he noticed that the area was mysteriously clearer than the jungle they had emerged from. Not just a little clearer, a LOT clearer.

"Akane, does the area like at all strange to you?" he asked, looking at the foliage.

Akane looked around and shrugged. "It's green, it's leafy, I hate it. I don't see anything different."

"Well, look. The area looks like it's been... defoliated. It's all so short, no large trees or anything."

Akane shrugged. "Right, I see that now. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Yet, I don't think I want to find out either." He almost laughed out loud at himself. That was just ludicrous, like some monster, Godzilla or King Kong, came through the jungle, ripped the place up, left a giant mound of dirt and then left.

Outrageous. There was some obviously logical explanation for things; he just didn't know what they were. "I wonder..." he said quietly.

"Wonder what?"

"Well, maybe this used to be some sort of road. For that... temple." To imagine that there was some sort of civilization that could have actually built that place... made that statue...

Akane shrugged and looked too entirely relaxed. "Well, I don't know, but I bet we could find a good spot to have a hut or something, and we wouldn't have to clear any trees or anything."

That was one thing about the island that bothered Akane. And there was nothing wrong with wondering, she knew, but it bothered her. There was an obvious natural order to the place, but it was an impossible ecological system. That waterfall... There hadn't been enough water in that crater to form the river or the waterfall.

And that... temple. That was obviously not a natural structure. The only rock they had seen was dark and jagged. Unless there was some giant hidden quarry, the white stone the temple had been made from did not come from the island.

Unable to make any of these things comfortably gel in her mind, Akane pushed the thoughts aside. When she was sitting safely in a fortress, she'd think about it, but not then, not when she had to worry about her survival.

"This looks like it continues on for some distance. How do you suppose it was made?" Ukyo asked, shielding his eyes as he looked down the path carved into the jungle.

"I couldn't even start to guess," Akane answered listlessly. She wasn't sure if speculation was such a good idea especially when considering the huge mound of dirt. And that temple. After that, she could have just as easily guessed King Kong as anything and it would have been valid.

"Possibly the soil is bad. That would explain the lack of large tress," Ukyo continued, though he was reaching for explanations.

"I doubt that."

Ukyo shrugged. "So do I, but..."

Akane cleared strands of sweaty hair from her face. "You know, right about now this whole exploration thing is just not agreeing with me. How about we just plant our butts somewhere, build a hut and go from there?"

"Well, I suppose so. We do need a place to work from. We can just work from there once we get settled." Ukyo looked down the wide lane they were walking. "We could do it here. It's as good a spot as any."

"Little further," was all Akane said. Best to put that weird mound and that t... She shuddered, fighting off the sensation of an oncoming flashback. Whatever it was, she didn't want to know, she didn't want to remember.

"We'll keep going."

* * *

"How far do you think we've gone?"

"No clue."

"Let's stop here."

"Right."

The two collapsed in the green grass that covered the lane.

"I think I hate this heat," Ukyo said, his body covered in sweaty grime.

"I know I do." She sat up and looked at his prone form. "But how do you think we should do this?"

"Do what? I'm considering just closing my eyes and taking a nap," was Ukyo's lazy reply.

"Making a shelter or something, dimwit. I don't think we have much of a chance of getting one up before tonight, but this is something we need to do. Fast."

Ukyo sat up and looked around, thinking about the quickest way of building such a structure that would also provide them the most protection. "I suppose we could start by building a wall..."

"Of what? Leaves and twigs?"

"We use tree trunks. Dig out holes, drop them in. Lash them together with vines or some such. That will be adequate protection at night. Then we can proceed to work on a hut." Ukyo gave Akane a rather pleased and somewhat smug smile.

Akane looked at him, blinking slowly. "Right. I'll believe it when I see it."

Rising slowly to his feet, Ukyo looked around. "Where is the ground flattest? That will make things easier." He walked around a bit, surveying the area.

"This seems fine. I bet we could dig a hole... here," he said, marking and area by jabbing a nearby stick into the ground. "How big do you think it should be? Twenty five feet? Thirty?"

Akane shrugged. "Twenty five is fine."

Ukyo took twenty five measured steps away from the stick in the ground and marked a second point. He turned what he roughly figured as ninety degrees and took another twenty five steps. A third point was marked. He marked the final point and stepped back.

"We anchor trunk in the ground at each corner then just tie a bunch of them together between, work a gate in there somehow and we have a nice wall those dogs won't be able to get through." He nodded his head once to emphasize his point.

Akane looked completely unimpressed. "We still have to do this. Alone. With no tools, no supplies."

Ukyo sat next to Akane on the ground. "The biggest problem I see is some sort of vine or fibrous plant that we can use to hold the trunks together. Maybe if we could find some sort of clay to fortify the bases. Or use a little water and sink them into mud and..."

"I get the point already! Give it a rest!"

Ukyo leaned back a little. "You wanted to know..."

"Yeah, and I'm sorry I did. You think this wall thing will work? Really work?"

"I don't see any reason it would not. There is nothing supernatural about these beasts. They will not leap the wall or knock it down. It depends on how well we can set a foundation for it, but..."

Akane flopped back in the grass. "Next time I'll learn," she groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Right. I'm putting my life in your hands now. How long will this take?"

"I'm not sure. It might be best for us to gather all the necessary materials first then erect it as swiftly as possible all at once." Ukyo's mind was racing in unfamiliar directions. Plans for this wall, how to make a gate, a ladder of some sort, where they would sleep... It was all churning in his mind. Could he have been an architect or carpenter of some sort?

Akane knew what all of that entailed. "I'm never sleeping in a tree again," she said and shook her head.

* * *

"This one. Do you think it's tall enough?" Akane looked up, shading her eyes with her hand from the sun. "Looks straight enough."

Ukyo stood next to her, judging the height of the tree. "It looks fine to me as well. Stand back," he warned.

Akane got out of the way so Ukyo could bring the tree down. Getting hit with whatever technique he was using was something she didn't want at all.

Ukyo eyed the tree. The tree sat there. Having no idea how he actually managed to do it, Ukyo just took a deep breath, held his stick just so then swung.

As if he had swung through air and only air, Ukyo's stick lazed right through the tree. There was a moment of stillness before the tree began to topple, sending a small and annoyed group of birds into the air.

The moment it had crashed to the ground, Ukyo and Akane were on it, dragging it across the ground to place it next to the others.

"Perfect. I don't know how many we'll need," Ukyo said, wiping his brow on his arm. "We should do one wall at a time. Though I am concerned about what we will use to tie them together."

Akane's forehead creased as she sank into deep thought. She couldn't really identify the plants, but she had a pretty good idea about what would be the ones they were looking for. "Let me look around a little first. You keep up with the trees and when I get back, we'll move them."

Akane was up and moving before Ukyo could reply. There was a mass of trees close by that she had seen from her perch in their tree while they relaxed at night.

The trunks of these trees were thick, larger around than any others, and were relatively short with broad leaves that were a vibrant green. There were also long, slender vines drooping from the highest branches.

When Akane reached the trees, she yanked on one of the vines, ripping it free of the tree. It was maybe an inch around and had a rough exterior. She wasn't sure if it would work since it was so thick, but it had a sponginess to it. She pulled down a few more of the vines to show to Ukyo and headed back to the building site.

On her return, she found that Ukyo had felled two more trees and was sizing up another. "Check out these vines. They might work to tie the trunks together." She went to one of the trunks and experimentally tied a vine around it. It gave way a little when she tried to pull it tight, but held. "This is gonna work," she said to herself.

* * *

"Push!" Ukyo yelled, sweat dripping from his forehead, his eyes closed tightly shut.

"What the hell do you think I'm doing?" Akane shouted back, her arms straining as she tried to push the trunk upright.

The base of the trunk slipped slightly in the dirt before getting the edge caught on the hole that had been dug for it.

"It's going. A little higher!" Ukyo urged.

"Then you get back here! You're taller than me anyway!"

"PUSH!"

The two strained themselves until they got the trunk upright and planted in the hole.

"One down," Akane wheezed and slumped to the ground. "How many more to go?"

"A lot," Ukyo replied, barely able to catch his breath, his arms aching.

"Oh, whee." Akane kneeled on the ground and began filling in the rest of the hole with dirt and medium-sized rocks. It would have to do until they could find something better. Maybe clay, or something else like that.

"I think," Ukyo said, starting to tie vines around the tree, one almost at ground level and another just above his eye level, which was slightly over halfway to the top, "that we should actually work on two walls simultaneously."

That was answered by a grunt from Akane.

"Then they two walls will be able to brace each other. With our limited supplies, we can't rely on these vines to hold an entire section up. So if we just..."

"Do we need more vines then?"

Ukyo looked down at Akane, who was looking up at him with a patient annoyance. "Um, not at the moment. We will when we..."

"Then let's get another one of these bastards up. Sooner the better." She stood, dusting herself off, and looked at the next trunk. "How are we gonna do this without a hole to anchor it in?" she asked.

"I suppose we could lift it and put some sort of braces under it. Then lift it again and put a taller brace. We could get it up pretty high that way. It would probably work to dig a shallow hole to brace it in as we lift. Once we tie it up, we can..."

"You talk too much, Ukyo. If that's how it's gonna work, let's just do it that way." Akane leaned against their first post, anchored into the ground. It fortunately did not give. The hole had apparently been deep enough.

Ukyo was already digging the shallow hole for the next trunk. When he was finished with that, he and Akane dragged the next trunk into position. "So now we just..."

"This isn't going to work."

"And why not?"

"Once we get this one up, how are we going to keep it from falling over? It's huge, and how much you figure it weighs? We can't hold it up and build the rest of the wall at the same time," Akane asked, eyeing the huge log they would have to raise.

"We just tie it with the vines to the first one."

"Assuming that holds it."

"Assuming."

Akane sighed. "Great, just great. Though I suppose we don't have much of a choice, do we?" Akane lifted the end of the trunk and tested its weight. "Well, it's lighter than the last one."

"Tie it fast. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold it steady, and if it starts to slip, I sure can't hold it then."

Akane nodded. "Quick as I can. Ready?"

Ukyo braced himself, not leaning too much into it, but keeping it steady. "Ready."

"Letting go... now." Akane released her hold on the log and fell immediately to her knees and tied the vine quickly. She stood and tied the second one tight. "OK, tied. See how it stands." She stood back as Ukyo relaxed his hold.

The log swayed a little, but the vines tying to the anchored log combined with a nice flat base for it, kept it steady.

"Looks like we have success," Ukyo said, letting out a big breath. Now for the next one."

Akane groaned.

* * *

Ukyo looked at the construction of their primitive protective wall. Three sides were done and they were just starting the fourth. It had been over two weeks of hard work and sleeping in trees, but in his opinion, it would be worth it.

"It actually looks like something now," Akane said, coming up behind him with a gourd of water and drinking from it. "Now all we need is a place to live."

"We'll get there. And we won't have to worry about those dogs at all, not with our expertly constructed wall."

Akane snorted and finished off the water. "Expertly built. We'll be lucky if it lasts one night with us in it and those dogs outside. And if it doesn't, we'll be dead. Of course, it would probably be because the whole damn thing fell on our heads."

Ukyo smiled back at her. "Cheerful ray of sunshine that I've grown to... know, as always. Let's just finish up this last side, and then we'll give it a test run. We've got a gate after all."

Akane considered the spit and leaves gate they had attempted to construct. "After the dogs and the whole thing collapsing, that's the one thing I'd expect to break when we're leaving and kill us."

Ukyo just laughed, in far too good a mood from the progress they'd made on the barrier to get annoyed. Yes, Akane had an extremely pessimistic outlook on things, but that was probably better than both of them being hopelessly enthusiastic. "Right, one more and we're done. Let's go."

Akane made a disgusted face and tossed the empty gourd aside. One more and then she'd swear off log lifting for the rest of her life. Though... She looked at her arm. Two weeks and her skin was darkly tanned and she could see some improved definition in the muscles there.

She hated doing the work, but there were a few interesting benefits of it.

"Pectorals are next."

Akane looked at Ukyo. "What?"

"We can work on pectorals next." He was smiling, having caught her quick self-examination.

"Pervert," she replied and marched over to the next log. They had exhausted the small group a trees' supply of vines and had to search for more. It was, predictably, one of the few rare things on the island. They would never go hungry, never be thirsty, but they had trouble finding the trees that grew such useful vines.

They had discovered the secret to the vines' strength, and that had made the relative rarity of the vines even more unfortunate. They seemed to be made of a large bunch of long fibers, all collected in a rough, protective skin.

These fibers proved to be strong and even stronger when in a bunch. Akane could see lots of uses for them. If they could find enough of them. Well, if there was going to be problem after problem, they'd just have to overcome them all. They couldn't just quit.

She tied the vines around the next log, having learned two walls ago that it was easier to tie them on before they got them standing. Akane slapped the trunk roughly once the vines were securely tied. "OK, this one's next."

The two carried the log into position and began the rather arduous task of lifting it into place. The process had gotten less time consuming and a little easier, but it was still a strain on the both of them. Thankfully, they wouldn't have to do it again, at least for a while, after the final wall was finished.

"One down, too many more to go," Akane said, hopping down from where she had climbed the anchored post to tie the vine at the top. "How long do you think this thing will last anyway? I don't want to end up doing this again in a week." Though she had to admit that it looked petty sturdy, and when she climbed up the thing, there had been no dangerous wiggle, no wobble to it at all.

"I'm not sure. It should hold off the dogs for as long as we need it to. Solid, tall, and once we reinforce the base, it should be able to hold off a rhino. Not that I believe there are any on this island." Ukyo's arms were smeared with the dark, sticky sap the trees bled, but that was another one of those lucky coincidences.

It acted like a natural gum to partially stick the posts together. For once, luck seemed to be favoring their side.

"A rhino? I'll hold you to that. But now about that gate..."

Ukyo groaned.

* * *

"Swings out. Like a regular gate."

"Those are twelve feet high. How are we going to make them do that? Not to mention move those stupid things without tearing the whole thing down..."

Ukyo shrugged. "I don't know. We can't cut one in half or the others will be unstable. I am open for suggestions if you can think of something." The gate thing had been plaguing them the entire time and they had put it off until the last moment.

Akane scratched her head, thinking about it. "We only really need to close it at night, right? We could leave it open during the day. So it doesn't need to be a swinging door or anything. We just need to be able to get supplies in and out of here and keep the dogs out. So if it's hard to open, that's fine. As long as it doesn't make the entire thing fall down..."

Ukyo growled in frustration. "It will not fall down! It will not crash down upon our heads! Please give me a little credit! Can you do that for a moment, Akane?"

"Sure, I can do that," she answered quietly.

"Then help think of a way to make this work instead of only how we'll fail."

Akane could see that he was really upset this time and decided to lay off a little. "Well, we could anchor two posts near the center and maybe have shorter posts between those... It'd be tough, but then they could swing out, or we could just drop them to the ground, then at night we'd just put them back in place and tie them together..."

"I suppose that works, but how will we brace them? We can't just have them there, waiting to be knocked down. If those dogs manage to break through, then..."

"I know. You don't need to explain it." Akane was attempting to work around their lack of building supplies and wasn't doing a very good job of it. "Well, what if we... Hmm. How about if we had three thick logs, but not as huge as these and made an arch with them. Then we put the arch against the inside of the door and brace it with two more logs braced in the dirt?"

Ukyo considered the idea. Not all that practical, but they couldn't afford to be practical when it came to safety; they had to be sure. "I do believe that would work."

"Good. Then we can give it a try. And then we'll finally be done."

"Done with the palisade. We will still have the house to work on."

* * *

"First we sharpen the ends of these two." Akane hacked away at the end of one log with a flattened rock until it was formed into a rough point. "Then we make holes in this one where we want them to connect." Akane pointed to the third log.

"I see. We can tie them with the vines to secure them," Ukyo said as he finally understood what it was Akane was trying to accomplish. "Then we just hold that up against the gate."

"Right. As long as those dogs try to get in this way, it'll be braced. Even if all of this should fall down, it's still a lot of wood that would be laying in front of the gate." Akane spoke as she continued to whittle away at the end of the log.

"And if spread rocks and gravel around the base, maybe mix in clay or mud and let it dry, we should be securely tucked in."

Each of them smiled at that, but Ukyo's smile faded when he realized that they were on a permanent camping trip and would most likely never see home again.

* * *

It was something to be proud of. After all that work, they had to be proud of it. It was virtually impenetrable, if somewhat hard to get out of once the "gate" was closed, but that was fine.

They each knew they would, in time, devise new ways to make things work. All it took was time and experience in their new surroundings.

"Feel this," Ukyo prompted.

Akane felt the point on the piece of bone he had been sharpening against a large, flat rock. "Yow. What's that for?" The thing was sharp, formed from the short rib of a boar, and wicked looking.

"Instead of using sharpened wooden spears, we can affix these tips to the spears. They'll work better for fishing, though I don't know if they will last more than one or two uses," Ukyo said, holding the bone up and looking at it. "And it may be better to continue to use the wooden spears for regular hunting. These may be too fragile."

Akane nodded. "Yeah. I haven't had any problems so far just hunting regularly. Fishing is another story." She laid out the armful of leaves she had gathered. They came from the same trees the vines did, being quite thick and heavy. Each one was about as big around as her head and would work as natural shingles to the shelter.

Construction of the shelter had been left mostly to her motivation. It wasn't that Ukyo didn't help, she just didn't need it. She didn't really want it either. The shelter was small enough, not like the palisade, that she could do it all herself, and it felt nice to have her project to work on.

There was nothing wrong with teamwork, but it felt good to work at her own pace and not rely on someone else. And Ukyo looked like he was doing fine, making spears, their own version of tools, and working on little things like that. His latest thing had been to gather gourds, strange squash that seemed to grow in large clumps, empty them out and leave them to dry in the sun.

"Water," he had told her. "If we keep an adequate supply, we won't need to make so many trips to the spring."

Akane couldn't believe the waterfall. There just wasn't enough water in that crater to form a waterfall of that power. She had discovered, in her mission to gather as many vines as possible, that the island seemed to be covered with little natural springs. It still didn't explain that waterfall really, but the one that was not too far away from their choice of locales was pretty handy.

Of course, not too far away in this case meant a nice half mile hike. Again, though, it was one of those things they could just do. Go out, go for a walk, fill a couple gourds with water, pick some fruit...

The fact that she was getting complacent about things didn't sit well with Akane. There wasn't much she could do about it, but she didn't have to get comfortable with it. Not until she was good and ready to.

"Maybe we could build a small boat or raft to fish from," Ukyo said, having finished with the bone-tipped spear. He had set it aside and was working on carefully weaving together a few of the strands from the vines. If it worked, they could maybe make their own rope. That would be far more convenient than relying on the vines.

"Yeah, that'd be good. A raft..." Akane's mind was more on building the shelter than anything. It was only temporary, but that didn't mean it had to be shoddy. "Just let me finish this up before that."

"Well, I didn't mean you had to do it. I can help if you want. There's not much..."

"No, Ukyo. I can do it."

Ukyo looked at Akane for a moment then nodded. If she didn't want his help, then... he'd just have to find something else to do. "If you're sure..."

"I am. I can do it by myself."

Ukyo looked at Akane with a small frown on his face for a moment before returning to his work.

It was ugly, but it would do. It was just big enough to allow the two to sleep under, situated in the corner of their protected yard. It would serve its purpose until a more permanent structure could be built.

Akane relaxed under the brush and leaf roof, trying to fall asleep, but not having much success. The constant sounds of the dogs on the other side of the palisade were more disturbing than she had anticipated.

"Akane?"

"What do you want, Ukyo?"

"Come out here. Look at the sky."

Akane rolled over so she was facing the palisade wall. "I've seen it before. Dark and lots of stars."

"But look at this. Just for a moment."

Having a yawning fit as she got up, Akane crawled out from under the shelter to see Ukyo sitting on the ground, head tilted back, staring up at the sky. "What is it?"

"Look," he said, pointing upward.

Akane sighed in annoyance and looked up. The sight took her breath away. The sky was the normal midnight blue she was used to, and there were too many stars visible to count because of that, but she immediately saw two things she hadn't seen before.

The first, which almost brought tears to her eyes, was the only constellation she was familiar with: Orion. She wasn't sure why, but it comforted her in a way, to know that they really were still on Earth and rescue was always a possibility.

As she stared, Ukyo reclined so that he was lying in the grass and looking up. He put his arms behind his head and just looked.

Like a vertical gash in the sky, Akane also could see a whispy trail of what appeared to be clouds. "What is it?" she asked, her voice having dropped to a whisper.

"I think it's the Milky Way. It's the galaxy," Ukyo replied with a touch of awe in his voice.

"I didn't know it was possible to see that."

"It is, but only under certain conditions. New moon, no clouds, no lights..." There weren't words to describe the mixed feelings he was experiencing. Awe and profound sadness were the most prevalent, but not the obvious sadness he would have thought.

Maybe it was denial. Maybe he was just fooling himself, but that was the only way he could cope. To continue to believe that they might be rescued, leaving a powerful ache in his heart, and seeing the now familiar stars... It was all he could do to keep himself from crying.

Akane sat down next to him and looked up at the sky. It was another moment before she lay next to him and stared into the void overhead.

"It's pretty. I don't remember ever having seen anything like it," Ukyo said quietly.

Nodding, Akane didn't say anything. There was an ominous peace that accompanied the wide open sky, like the entire world was about to be swallowed up in those stars. Akane closed her eyes, consumed by total darkness.

* * *

Akane woke up to gentle morning light and a cool breeze. She sat up and looked around, feeling out of sorts. They were still on the island, still in the safety of their walls, and...

Ukyo was still sleeping, on his side with his back to her, next to her. Not bothering to wake him up, she rose and started to unbar the gate as quietly as possible.

When she finally got it open, able not to wake Ukyo, Akane headed on the hike to the nearest spring with a gourd in one hand. The one... two horrible things about being in such an untamed environment without any sort of environment control were uncontrollable sweating and bugs.

After a night of sleeping outside, Akane tended to wake up with both problems working at full capacity. Just dousing herself didn't work nearly as, or feel as nice, as submerging herself, but it was better than nothing. Now all she needed was soap.

At the spring, Akane filled the gourd from the clear water burbling up from between some rocks and spilling out onto the ground. She took a long drink before refilling it and setting it down.

Facing the spring, Akane began to remove her ragged clothing, hoping for a miracle so that she might have something sturdier to wear before the shirt disintegrated off her back. Shirt and pants both were laid out carefully on a rock, then she sat on a large rock and dumped the contents of the gourd over her head.

One simple courtesy item she wished she had: underclothing that she'd be able to keep clean and in good shape. As it was, she had had to dispose of her old ones along with Ukyo's. It just wasn't practical.

Akane continued with the process of pouring the water over her skin. It at least cleaned off the visible grime even if it didn't get her _clean_.

* * *

Ukyo yawned and rubbed at his eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them. Sleeping on the ground like that had put a horrible kink in his neck and he had apparently been sleeping on a rock. At least that was what his back was telling him. A quick wash would hopefully wake him up, get his muscles ready to work.

He wished they would have chosen a spot closer to the river, near that waterfall. That had been so much nicer than being forced to just dump water on themselves. But he could also imagine the hassle in building the structure they had near the river, without the benefit of the open space.

There was no reason in dwelling on that though. They had finished building something he hoped to never build again and that was that. They had immediate needs to satisfy and relocating was not one of them.

He pushed aside the branches that crossed his path and suddenly held his breath. Every muscle in his body refused to even twitch while he took in the sight before him.

Smooth, _naked_ skin assaulted his eyes, making his brain grind to a halt. Ukyo swallowed what felt like a boulder in his throat as Akane poured water over her shoulder and down her back.

Hand tightening on the gourd close to the point of crushing the slender neck, Ukyo tried to make himself back away. He twitched, but that was the only movement he could manage.

For what seemed like a lifetime, he stood there and stared. Every detail, every curve revealed to him he studied and vowed to never forget. He didn't think anything would ever surpass the moment.

That seemed to free him of his paralysis, and quietly as possible, Ukyo turned and started to walk away.

Akane turned, hearing the bushes rustle, her arm held instinctively across her chest. "Ukyo?"

Ukyo stopped, his eyes darting back and forth. "Y... yes?" She would kill him. And if she was naked while she did it, he would enjoy it. A lot.

"Just making sure that was you. I'm done here. Just let me get my clothes back on."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ukyo relaxed slightly and answered, "Take your time."

"Why don't we work on that raft today," Akane continued while she redressed, "and then we can work on a house. Feel up to it?"

Ukyo's cheeks reddened and he subtlely held the gourd in front of crotch. "Yeah, I think so."

Akane slapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jump. "Great. I'll see you back at the fort." With that, Akane walked away, whistling something.

Now shaking, Ukyo hurried back to the spring and thanked his luck that the water was cold.

* * *

"That," Akane said, "is a big ugly bastard of a mountain."

That wasn't exactly how Ukyo would have put it, but he nodded his head anyway. It _was_ a big ugly bastard of a mountain.

"Hopefully there's something worthwhile on the other side of it," he said. "At least, something besides vines and monkeys."

"Heh. Yeah, maybe there's a luxurious island resort."

"Yes, where wealthy tourists frolic with the playful hordes of wild dogs infesting this hellhole," he replied sourly. Still... no luxury resort, certainly, but perhaps a coastal outpost? A tiny settlement? Anything?

It was very easy to get his hopes up. But he had the depressing feeling that they were going to find absolutely nothing.

Akane jogged ahead, starting up the slope of the mountain. "C'mon. We'll get there a lot faster if we cut over this thing."

Pushing down a growing sense of foreboding, he followed.

The trail - well, not trail so much as non-overgrown bit of rock - led them further and further up the mountain slope. As they circled around, the trees and vegetation began to thin, and the rocks became sharper and more broken.

"This is not exactly the most attractive part of this island," he noted. Akane shrugged.

"It ain't pretty, but it's kind of nice. We don't have to worry that something's going to jump out at us from a branch."

"I suppose so," he said, picking his way forward through a particularly rough patch of rocks.

Then the earth beneath him gave way and he fell, yelling, into darkness.

Akane gave a sharp shriek and grabbed for his hand as he fell. She caught it - and then, off balance, fell in after him.

They hung in the black air for a second, and then they fell on something soft, yielding, and furry. There was a rather decisive, short snap.

Ukyo looked up. He and Akane were lying on something furry and twitching, they were in some sort of cavern, and about twenty pairs of glowing yellow eyes were staring at them through the darkness.

"Oh shit," he commented.

"You said it," Akane muttered, glancing around, hands moving into ready positions.

One pair of the glowing yellow lamps moved forward, revealing themselves to be attached to a fanged muzzle.

So this was where the wild dogs went during the day.

"Ukyo, there's a tunnel right behind us with no eyes in it. Start backing up real slow."

He did. That was what his body was screaming at him to do anyway.

The eyes began moving forward. A low growling began to fill the cavern.

"Keep going... almost there..."

The first dog growled and leapt.

Ukyo's fighting stick swung out, almost faster than the eye could follow, and sliced it cleanly in half. The two pieces fell to the cavern floor with a meaty thud.

The other dogs continued slowly advancing, confused. They knew what to do when you were on hunts; snarl, bark, and rush the prey. But they weren't hunting; they had been half-asleep and napping in their cozy den when two huge ape-things had fallen from the roof and killed their leader. The number-two dog had attacked, and now number two was dead. This wasn't in the vicious wild dog scenario book.

So they were settling for snarling, advancing, and slowly waking up.

Akane and Ukyo, of course, knew none of this.

"How many left?"

"Only twenty-six or so."

"Only?"

Ukyo winced, and kept backing up. "I know."

They slowly retreated into a low tunnel, the dogs following.

"Ukyo, I think I can see daylight to the left."

"Good. Keep going."

Another dog sprang, and again Ukyo's stick lashed out, sending it tumbling to the ground a corpse. A few others crowded forward, the scent of blood in the air attracting instead of dissuading them.

"Akane, how much farther?" He fought to keep his voice calm; there were an awful lot of eyes appearing in the darkness...

"Not much, just keep... oh shit."

He gritted his teeth. "Oh shit what?" The dogs grinned at him, lolling tongues flopping out between yellowing fangs. The growls grew louder.

"There's some dogs at the entrance. I'll take care of them, just keep going."

Two sprang at him, and he slashed out, decapitating one, and tending to other crashing into a third attacker. The dogs paused to savage the two wounded pack members, then resumed their steady advance. He could almost smell the bloodlust.

The sounds of combat behind him didn't register until they ceased.

"Keep going, Ukyo. Don't trip on the bodies."

He gingerly stepped over the four dogs that lay unmoving at the cave mouth, and then they were outside.

The remaining dogs hesitated at the cave entrance, blinking in the sun. Ukyo guessed that they had a largely nocturnal existence; while not blind in the sun, they were unused to it and needed quite a bit of adjustment.

He thought it over, and concluded it was worth the risk. Indeed, it looked like their best chance.

"Run for it," he yelled, turning around and taking off. Akane, already facing the right direction, dashed just ahead of him.

They could hear the yelps and snarls as the dogs made a fumbling pursuit, their natural impulse to chase fleeing animals kicking in to full force. Normally they would have run the two bipedal humans down easily; however, they were still half blind from the unusual amounts of light. And so their pursuit was slowed by a great deal of stumbling, colliding, and running into trees.

The sounds of canine skulls colliding with wood would have been enjoyable if they hadn't been scared out of their wits.

The terrain was rough and jagged, and tripped them up several times. Fortunately, the dogs had twice as many legs to stumble over outcroppings with.

Five minutes later, panting, they pulled to a halt.

Akane glanced around, her breath coming in gulps. "At least know we know where the dogs live."

"Yes. The mountain."

"Hrm. Needs a name, you know. We can't just keep calling it 'That Mountain'."

"Why not?"

She poked him irritably in the side. "We're exploring. If you discover something new, you name it."

He rolled his eyes. "I suppose you wish to name it 'Big Ugly Bastard'?"

"Nah, it needs a serious name. Something Latin or Chinese or something." She furrowed her brow. "What's Latin for dog?"

"'Canis,' I believe."

"Okay, it's Canis Mountain."

"Yes, oh great explorer," Ukyo deadpanned. Akane flushed slightly.

"C'mon, let's head toward the sea. If we find a lagoon or something, you get to name it."

"Oh rapture."

"You're no fun, Ukyo."

"Sorry. Would it help if I named the trees as we walk?"

"Baka."

* * *

The strolled along under the shadow of the mountain, heading for the northern ocean beaches. Both of the thought it unlikely that any settlement would be built far inland; at least, any civilized settlement.

That was something that they discussed from time to time. Someone had built that temple, and that someone obviously wasn't your typical twentieth-century explorer or settler. Were the builders still around, and, if so, were they friendly? Hostile? Cannibals?

There was no sure way of knowing. But, as Akane pointed out, the intentions of anyone who would carve a statue like the one in the temple were dubious at best.

So they made their way quietly, cautiously, and hoped that they'd find a modern settlement instead of a headhunter's village.

The northern face of the island was craggy, cliffs and headlands forming bays and inlets. The trees, dipping and rising in steep little valleys, helped shelter and hide the various bays and lagoons. Akane and Ukyo checked each one closely, painfully aware at how easy it would be for someone to be spying on them.

The first five coves had nothing even resembling civilization.

The sixth, however, surpassed every expectation they had.

* * *

"Yup," Akane said slowly. "It's a ship. I don't believe it."

It sat in the bay like a metal leviathan, the evening sunlight playing upon flaking paint and rusty metal. From the size and shape of it, both instantly assumed it to be a cargo vessel of some sort, riding low in the water.

They looked at each other for a second, and then ran down the slope, frantically waving and yelling at the top of their lungs.

By the time they reached the shore of the bay, they began to realize something was wrong.

"I don't see anyone on deck," Akane said, pulling to a halt with a frown.

Ukyo nodded, studying the ship. "Look at the paint, and the state of the metal. I think it might be abandoned."

She scowled. "Damnit. Still... you know, I bet we could figure out how to steer that thing. It could be our ticket out of here."

Nodding, he continued to stare at the huge vessel. "I do not know if there would still be usable fuel in the tanks... if not, perhaps we could distill something that would be suitable, or rig sails."

"The important thing is the size," Akane said, eyes gleaming. "If we made a raft, we'd have to worry about it tipping over in even moderately rough weather, and we wouldn't be able to carry more than a week's worth of fresh water. This... we could carry a whole damn lake in it."

Ukyo suddenly trotted off along the shore to a stand of vegetation. Blinking, Akane followed, and watched as he hauled a tiny ship's launch out of the weeds.

"It would seem someone has been ashore," he said, pushing the small boat into the water. "Shall we row out to the ship?"

"I think we shall," she replied with a smirk.

Each took an oar, and soon the tiny craft was speeding through the bay towards the looming bulk of the ship.

As they drew close, Akane suddenly stiffened. "Ukyo. Hey, Ukyo, look at the flag on the mast!"

He peered up at the masthead, seeing a dangling, ragged piece of red and white cloth. "It looks like white and red stripes... perhaps it is Amer..."

A sudden breeze blew the flag for a second, and it hung open before collapsing back into a limp rag.

"That was the old Imperial ensign," he said slowly. "The Rising Sun."

Akane nodded grimly. "Look over there towards the bow. I think that's an anti-aircraft gun."

Ukyo felt a sour feeling begin to form in the pit of his stomach. "It this is a Japanese ship from the Second World War, and it's been sitting in this bay for the last fifty years... I don't think people visit this island much. At all, even."

"Yeah," Akane said heavily. "I was just thinking that too."

Their skiff pulled alongside the huge vessel, and they clambered up rusty metal rungs set into the side of the hull. Each noticed how bad the corrosion really was, and now and again they had to skip a particularly unstable rung.

After the short climb, they hauled themselves over the side and stared.

The deck of the ship was a shambles. Rusted pieces of mast or bulkhead lay strewn across the wooden deckplanks, and bullet or shellholes seemed to riddle half the forward area.

The anti-aircraft gun was a rusted, corroded mass of metal, and slumped at its levers and handles were two skeletons, tatters of uniform covering yellowing ribs.

Akane swallowed. "This isn't good."

Equally dismayed, Ukyo nodded. "Hopefully, it isn't quite as bad belowdecks. After all, this has all been lying in the wind and rain for the last half century, ne?"

She nodded. "Yeah. C'mon, there's a door in that structure over there."

Ukyo took the handle of the indicated portal, and pulled. The door came off in his hand.

"Don't break the ship, baka," Akane said, nervously smirking. He gave a halfhearted chuckle, and carefully entered the hallway.

Inside, it was almost as bad as the deck. Bits of ceiling littered the floor, and a jagged hole gaped in one wall. Three more bodies lay sprawled along the length of the corridor.

Gingerly, they edged around the ancient corpses and made their way towards a stairwell.

Akane was the first one down, and frowned as she realized the lack of light that the lower decks obviously had. "Hey, Ukyo, could you make us a light?"

He shrugged helplessly. "From what?"

"I dunno. Those dead guys had some cloth on em, you could use..."

"I don't think so."

"Feh, squeamish." She trotted down the stairs, squinting in the dim light. "Just because it's on a dead guy doesn't mean that..."

She opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, and had to stifle a shriek. She had found the upper hold.

Half of it was underwater, either through decades of rain or a rip in the lower hull. In the fetid muck, grinning at her in welcome, sat several hundred of the Emperor's finest soldiers. They still clutched their rifles, bits of gear, or handholds, and all of them sat and smiled at her with empty eyesockets, helmets drooping low over bony foreheads, rank pins and medals glinting dully from chests of bone and decaying cloth and mud and algae.

Akane slowly backed away, and Ukyo let out a strangled gasp as he reached the door. "Oh my God..."

"There must be hundreds of them," Akane said in horrified fascination, staring at the rows upon rows of silent, grinning faces.

"Yes..." Ukyo said, unable to look away.

The sight held them spellbound for a few seconds; then, with a shudder, they quickly retreated back up the stairs.

"This is bad," Akane muttered as they climbed.

"Yes, a ship full of dead men isn't exactly a blessing from heaven, I suppose."

"Worse," she told him glumly. "A sunken ship full of dead men."


	4. part 4

BLISS

part 4

by Mike Loader and Lara Bartram

"It might just be that hold that's flooded..."

"Nope. Do you feel the ship bobbing up and down? I don't. And it looked like it was riding awfully low in the water. No, Ukyo, this ship's at the bottom of the bay. The bay just isn't terribly deep."

He sighed. "I think you're right. But it might not be necessary to sail the ship out of here."

"Huh?"

"Radio. Maybe the ship has a radio. Actually, it definitely has one; it is whether or not it still works that is the question."

Akane brightened. "Hey, yeah! That'd be on the bridge, I guess..." Her face darkened suddenly. "Look, Ukyo, something's very wrong here."

He smiled grimly. "Elaborate on that, please."

"Well... look, what are all those dead guys **doing** down there?"

"Being dead would be my guess."

She scowled. "Hahah, very funny. I mean what did they die from, smart guy?"

Ukyo frowned. "I see what you mean. Perhaps they starved..."

"There's an islandful of harvestable food outside."

"Maybe the boat didn't arrive until after they were dead," he countered. "And the last few people left alive abandoned it, went into the jungle, and were killed by the wild dogs."

"You expect me to believe that an entire troop transport could float around the Pacific Ocean in WW2 long enough for everyone on board to starve? They'd have been rescued or sunk long before that."

He spread his hands. "I do not know, then. It does not look like illness... perhaps a poison gas of some sort?"

"Yeah, maybe... whatever it was, it looks like it hit then instantly." She shuddered. "Did you see the way they were just sitting in there, holding stuff? Like they were ready to stand up and go on with what they were doing?"

Ukyo didn't answer.

They passed the door they had entered the stairwell through, and kept climbing. Finally, after rooting through several closets, heads, and side corridors, they stepped onto the bridge.

As they had anticipated, the room contained several corpses. The captain, easily recognizable by his peaked cap and position in the center chair, sat erect. An unsheathed katana lay across his bony knees.

The other five bodies lay either slumped in their seats or sprawled across the steel deck. The narrow windows reflected their grinning faces, the color of the glass an odd, unplacable tint that made both of them a little edgy.

Akane spoke first. "Which one's the radio?"

Surveying the room, Ukyo pointed to a station in the corner. "There. That's the transmitter set." He slowly walked over, and stared at the bony occupant of the seat. Without a word, he gingerly pushed the skeleton out of the chair, sat down, and turned a knob.

A burst of static greeted him, and he gave her a hopeful smile. "It's still working!"

"Great! Now transmit something so we can get ourselves rescued offa this dump!"

"I'm trying," Ukyo muttered, fiddling with the decades-old knobs and dials. Akane briefly considered asking him where he had learned to use a radio; prudently, she decided against it.

"Can anyone hear me? This is an emergency. I repeat, is anyone receiving this?"

For several minutes, there was nothing but static.

"I repeat, can anyone hear me? This is an emergency. I'm..."

Without warning, a piping, atonal tune began to trill from the radio set.

Akane blinked. "What the? Flutes?"

Ukyo frowned at the set. This thing shouldn't be picking up music stations..."

The flute rose in volume, an odd, alien melody weaving through it in trilling bursts.

"What kind of music is this? Is it music?"

Ukyo's frown deepened. "Whatever it is, I don't like it."

A chittering... static... arose behind the flutes, and Akane edged away. "Hey... hey, Ukyo, why don't you turn that thing off, okay?"

"I think perhaps that would be wise," Ukyo said uneasily, and he reached for the power knob.

Before he could touch it, the flutes trilled in a screech that caused both of them to clutch at their ears in agony. With a burst of oddly-colored flame, the radio set exploded in a small fireball, knocking Ukyo from his seat.

"Ukyo! Hey, are you okay?" Akane quickly knelt beside him, as he groaned and pulled himself to his feet.

"Yes, I'm fine... just before it blew, I thought I heard..." He frowned, and shook his head. "It shouldn't have gone up like that. There's nothing in a radio that would cause it to explode."

She shrugged. "Mebbe these older models are built differently, and it blew a fuse or something." Glumly, Akane examined the merrily burning set, the flames flickering with an odd hue. "Stupid question, but I don't suppose you can repair it?"

"Certainly. All I need is a new set of component parts, a new case, and instructions on how to do it."

"Oh. They probably don't carry all that stuff on troop transports, do they."

"No, not usually."

Akane slammed her fist into the deck. "Great. Just great. The ship is sunk, the radio plays creepy flutes at us and then explodes, and there's several hundred dead men in the cargo hold. This really isn't living up to my expectations."

Smiling slightly, Ukyo strolled over to stand in front of the captain's chair. "It may not be a total loss. There is sure to be a great deal of useful equipment on this vessel." Gazing at the katana lying in the skeletal lap of the dead officer, he hesitantly lowered a hand down to grasp the hilt.

He had half expected the corpse to awaken at the disturbance; but, of course, it simply kept grinning at him from a bleached face. Slowly, reverently, he lifted the sword to catch the light streaming through the oddly-tinted windows.

The blade fell off.

He yelped, and yanked his foot out of the way of the falling length of steel. Behind him, Akane gave a small snicker.

The blade hit the deck, and broke into two pieces.

Disappointed, Ukyo picked up the two halves and examined them. It looked like good, carefully forged steel... on the other hand, it seemed to break like ceramic. Shrugging, he stuck the two halves in his belt.

"Ukyo! Hey, Ukyo, take a look at this!"

He glanced over to see Akane sitting in the radio chair, a leatherbound book open on her lap. "What is it?"

"Ship's log."

He hurried over, and she flipped to the last few pages.

 _Nagashi Maru, 4 June 1942, 0700_

 _Received blinker signals from_ Soryu _. Proceeding north-northwest of Midway Island with light cruiser_ Jintsu _, heavy cruisers_ Kumano _and_ Mogami _, and 11 transports._

 _Nagashi Maru, 4 June 1942, 0900_

 _Strafed by enemy aircraft. Seven casualties. Our forward gun brought one plane down._

 _Nagashi Maru, 4 June 1942, 1100_

 _Fog rose out of nowhere an hour ago. Have lost contact with_ Jintsu _and other escorts. Strafing seems to have damaged radar set; we are making slow but deliberate speed northward to clear the fogbank._

 _Nagashi Maru, 4 June 1942, 1230_

 _First Officer Takahashi has shot Bosun Ogawa, then himself. His mind apparently snapped for no discernible_ _reason. A great tragedy. Both men were fine officers, and a credit to the Navy and the Emperor._

 _Orders on radio silence forbid us to use the set to discover the status of the attack. Fog is still surrounding us. I have ordered the ship to turn and reverse course._

 _Nagashi Maru, 4 June 1942, 1500_

 _Still only fog. I have ordered the ship to keep course until we emerge from this damnable mist. I only hope that the foul weather has not interfered with our Midway operation._

 _Nagashi Maru, 5 June 1942, 0100_

 _I have used the radio in direct disobedience of orders, and I accept full responsibility for this act. No response as of yet. A broadcast for help will be made every_ _half hour._

 _A Lt. Nakamura attacked his superior officer with a knife in the troop bay. He was restrained, and locked in the brig, screaming about how his eyes were the wrong color. I have made a speech to the ship's complement to keep up morale._

 _Nagashi Maru, 5 June 1942, 0600_

 _The fog has not lifted. There has been no response to our radio signals. I am at a loss to explain this._

 _The crew is very uneasy, but keep to their posts like the brave seamen that they are._

 _Nagashi Maru, 5 June 1942, 1530_

 _Ensign Hawamo took an automatic rifle from the troop bay half an hour ago and opened fire on the mess hall. Seven men were killed before Lt. (jg) Goro shot and killed him._

 _I am very much afraid that we have fallen afoul of a new American weapon. It is the only thing I can think of. I pray for the well-being of my ship and crew._

 _Nagashi Maru, 6 June 1942, 0520_

 _Pestilential light and color on the horizon, ahead. Helm does not respond. Lunatics everywhere, have secured bridge and posted guards, but they may snap too. Only five more minutes at most. Hideous gate to hell! Long live the Emperor! Long live Japan!_

The log ended there.

"Damn," Akane finally said. "This is really giving me the creeps."

Ukyo nodded, staring at the open logbook. "At least now we know what part of the world we're in. Near Midway."

Akane snorted. "There **is** nothing near Midway. It's all alone in the middle of the Pacific, we learned that in school. We attacked it with a whole fleet of ships just for that, and the Americans defended it with a big old fleet for the same reason."

"Perhaps this is Midway?"

"Nah, I think there's an airstrip and naval base on it. There was one back in the 1940s, anyway, and we'd have seen signs of it."

"Then I am mystified. The ship must have sailed southward for many days, and finally run aground in this bay by sheer chance."

"Yeah," Akane said dubiously. "Maybe. I'm starting to think we've been abducted by UFOs or something, like on 'The X-Files'."

Ukyo smirked. "Don't get too preposterous, Agent Scully."

"I won't, Mulder. Now, since this hunk of metal isn't going to sail anywhere or radio anyone, how about we check the holds for valuables? The holds without the bodies, I mean."

He hesitated for a second. What he really wanted to do was get off this ship as quickly as possible - but he couldn't think of a single reason to justify fleeing. Quite the opposite, since the lower holds might contain items vital to their survival on the island.

"All right," he said. "Let us find a way down."

They combed the upper decks of the vessel for a good ten minutes, finding only long-dead corpses and shattered equipment and bulkheads. Akane managed to salvage a pocketknife, heavy flashlight, and some medical supplies, and Ukyo found a collection of classical Japanese literature.

It surprised them, however, how many potentially useful items were worthless. Silverware that disintegrated into dull flecks of metal when touched. Bowls coated with a greasy black fungus, rifles and pistols with the firing mechanisms rusted away, smashed, or in a few cases missing.

After this disappointing collection had been reviewed, they slowly began to descend down a rear stairway into the lower cargo hold of the Nagashi Maru.

It had been dim in the corridors above, and now it was dark as the inside of a coal mine. Akane soon switched on her new flashlight, and they carefully rounded the landings and moved downward.

Ukyo, leading the way, rounded the fourth switchback landing and suddenly froze. A figure stood halfway down the steps in a low crouch, head facing directly at him.

"Hello?" he called.

The figure didn't move.

Akane swung the light up, and they saw in the dim glow that the lean face grinning mockingly back at them was only bone and flecks of dried skin, an officer's cap perched jauntily atop it.

For a horrible moment Ukyo thought he saw the corpse wink, and then the body suddenly disintegrated in a shower of bones, rotting cloth, and dust. The skull fell to the steps, bounced, and clattered down the stairs into the darkness, still grinning.

For a few seconds they just stood on the steps they had halted on, each just wanting to go back up and forget about the hold. But neither wanted to be the one to suggest it, and each knew that there was really nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

Finally, Akane walked past Ukyo and continued down. Glad that someone had made a decision, he followed, his fighting stick held ready in one hand.

They rounded three more landings, and then the stairway opened onto a low-ceilinged, broad, flooded cargo bay. The steps simply led into the water, vanishing. They could see wooden crates, the wood rotting in the silt-choked water, floating listlessly in the glow from Akane's flashlight.

Nor was that the only thing that glowed. From the tops of the floating crates, from overhead pipes, from the far corners of the hold, beady pinpricks of red reflected the flashlight.

"Rats," Akane muttered. "All over the hold. There goes any chance of finding a lot of stuff; little bastards chew up anything that doesn't break their teeth."

"There are a good many things a troop transport would carry that we could use," Ukyo reminded her in a whisper. "Bayonets, shovels, shelter halves, insect repellent..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she said reluctantly. "C'mon. Looks like we're gonna hafta wade to get to those crates."

Gritting her teeth, she walked down the submerged steps and into the drowned hold. Ukyo followed a step behind her, stick held ready.

A few of the larger rats swam towards them, yellow teeth glinting in the electric light. They were quickly met with the tip of Ukyo's weapon, and after the first three deaths the rodent flotilla retreated out of range, squealing angrily.

The first crate they pried open contained mold, rotting cloth, and several nests of baby rats. The angry rodents in the bay began to squeal and close in, and they hastily moved on to the next bobbing treasure chest.

This one contained halftrack treads. They seemed perfectly usable, but the island had a distinct lack of halftracks.

For several minutes they moved deeper and deeper into the hold, prying off the lids of likely-looking boxes. The items found were uniformly either ruined or of no practical use.

At last, after over a dozen unsuccessful tries, they hit a gold mine.

Akane ripped the lid off the latest crate, and grinned. Inside were tools.

Most of them looked like folding shovels, trenchdiggers. But there was also a saw, a few awls and clamps, a keg of what she suspected were nails, two sturdy-looking iron mallets, and a long-handled, extremely sharp-looking axe.

"Jackpot," Akane breathed. "This stuff is gonna make building a house a whole lot easier."

Ukyo eyed the tools with open approval. "They certainly will. I think we..."

A sudden squealing and scurrying caused him to break off sharply, and he spun around to see the rats darting about the cargo bay in a state of agitation.

"What the...?" Akane began worriedly. Ukyo silenced her with a gesture, and watched as the rats frantically scurried out of the stagnant water, up along the walls and steps, and vanished into the holes and fissures of the ceiling and upper walls.

"Ukyo, I've got a really, really bad feeling here..."

He slowly nodded. "I think we should leave. Quickly."

"Right behind you. C'mon, we'll pull the crate to the stairs." They began to move swiftly for the entrance, the movement impaired by the waist-deep, silt-filled water.

Akane suddenly yelped and jumped away. "Ukyo, something just touched my leg!"

He pursed his lips. "Shine your light back towards the rear of the bay for a second."

She did, and they both noticed the rippling, twisting water immediately.

"It... maybe it's just a current or something..."

"Like hell," Akane said, raw fear in her voice. "Quick, onto the crate." She awkwardly clambered atop the floating box, and extended a hand to pull Ukyo up.

He was almost on to when his foot caught painfully on something. Acting on instinct, he slashed downward with his stick, striking something that felt softer than metal. His foot came loose, and he climbed inside the crate, squeezing against Akane in the close quarters.

"What now?" he said, inspecting his foot as he hunkered on the pile of tools. Whatever had caught his foot had left several circular-shaped wounds along his leg, bleeding slightly.

Akane handed him one of the metal shovels. "We row for the stairs and pray."

They did, and when the crate shook as if something large and blind and awkward was grabbing at it from beneath the water, they told themselves that it was only the motion of the water and redoubled their efforts.

Akane tossed one of the shovels into the water far behind them, and was disturbed by the way the ripples only seemed to increase after it had sunk.

Reaching the stairs, they quickly climbed out of the crate, grabbed two handfuls of tools, and ran like hell up the stairs. From the darkness behind the came a curious sound, not quite a squawk, not quite a hiss. They didn't look back.

* * *

After that, they very quickly made their way to the tiny boat which had carried them to the ship.

"Have you got the tools?"

Akane nodded, hurriedly tossing them into the boat. "Yeah. Nails, hammer, clamps, the lot. Can we get out of here now?"

Ukyo raised an eyebrow. "Nervous?"

"I'd just like to get off this ship before the army of dead men in the hold wake up and come to eat our flesh, thank you." He wasn't sure if she was joking or not. Neither, from her tone, was she.

"Very well. Let's go." He wasn't exactly feeling like hanging around either. There was clearly something very, very wrong with this ship.

They swiftly rowed away from the decaying hulk, trying not to splash too much. They still remembered the patch of moving water in the hold, and the sound it had made.

Ukyo kept one hand on his fighting stick until they reached the shore. Akane just kept glancing nervously at the water, ready to either defend herself or row faster.

It almost came as a surprise to both of them when they reached the shore without incident.

"Well?" Akane asked as they were hauling the tools out of the boat.

Ukyo blinked at her. "Well what?"

She pointed at the bay and ship. "Aren't you going to name it?"

A wet handful of sand sailed just past her. Grinning, Akane stuck her tongue out at him. "Missed me."

"Why you..." he began to mock-growl...

...why you...

...missed me, ya...

...jeez...

...stand your ground!...

"Ukyo? Ukyo?"

His eyes snapped open. He didn't remember closing them in the first place. Raising a hand, he wiped away the sweat that had suddenly appeared and fought down a rush of nausea.

"Just... just another flashback. It's nothing."

She stared at him with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity. "Huh. Know what brought it on?"

Ukyo shook his head tiredly. "I think we've done that before. That teasing, just now. Or something very much like it. I don't know." He winced. "For all we know, they might just happen at random."

"Yeah, well, I hope not. What happens if we get one while we're being attacked or something?"

"You make it sound like we're likely to be attacked quite often."

Akane shrugged. "Just being realistic. Everything on this island is either incredibly beautiful or wants to eat you."

He nodded, a bit of depression seeping in. "Come on, let's get these home." A smile forced its way onto his face. "Now that we've got real nails and a hammer, we can make a **real** home. Just watch."

* * *

The first step in the building of their new home was the destruction of the old one. Not that a crude brush hut was much of a home, but it still made them slightly regretful to tear it down.

In its place, a bed of gravel and rocks was carefully laid, forming a stone foundation. Neither of them were exactly sure what precise benefit this would bring, but they both felt it was preferable to dirt.

Corner posts were then hacked from the trees.

"Timber!"

"Which way?"

"Eh?"

"Which way is it falling, Uky..."

*CRASH*

"Ow."

After some small mishaps, the posts were erected at what would be the four corners of the house.

"They're crooked."

"..."

After many more mishaps, the posts were repositioned in the straight four corners of the house.

"I think that one's got wood rot."

"Ukyo, why do you wait till now to notice these things?"

After a mildly bruised elbow, the suspect post was replaced by a fresh one.

"Now the new one's crooked."

"%#!$*&!."

And so the pole was taken out, and straightened.

"Okay. Look good?"

"Well..."

"Good. What's next?"

Boards, cut with their newly-salvaged saw and Ukyo's fighting stick, were quickly fitted into position. Akane's hand, they found, was admirably suited to making a 2 by 4 into two 1 by 2s.

A framework began to take shape between the four poles.

"It's crooked."

"Let it be crooked, Akane."

"You wanna live in a crooked house?"

"Oh, all right..."

Before long, sections of wall were being nailed to it.

"Akane! Look..."

*CRASH*

"Are you okay, Akane?"

"...dig me out and then help me figure out why the east wall falls on people..."

The framework was revised and strengthened.

"But why not?"

"Because, Akane, that puts huge beams going through the middle of the house at waist level."

"So?"

"So I can't walk through wood."

"We can just climb over them."

Boards were refastened, and before long the house had an exterior wall.

"Looks good."

"Sure does. We've done well."

"Yup."

"So how are we going to put on a roof?"

"No idea whatsoever."

Their first roofing experiment consisted of brush, and lasted about a week.

"Akane, I find the vermin in the roof a bit of a problem."

"Yeah, I don't like seeing the ceiling move either."

An abortive attempt was made at a hide roof, but was quickly abandoned when the effects of repeated sun on dried hide became clear.

In the end, they simply built a flat surface of wood, hauled it up to the top of the framework with effort, nailed it in place, and used a mix of clay and earth to made an upper covering to keep the rain off the wood.

And then it was done.

* * *

"Ukyo, that's just..."

"It's for survival, Akane. I don't relish the idea either, but it's something we can use."

"Well, yeah, but it's gross."

"And I say it's necessary. It's not like I'm going to bring the whole thing back. Just the ropes."

Akane just made a disgusted face and shook her head.

"Don't worry. It should only take a little while. I should be back before the afternoon." He gave Akane a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, right. Just hurry so I don't have to go looking for you." Akane turned around and went back to fixing up the house a little more.

Ukyo watched her for a moment, letting his admiration show when she couldn't see it, then headed out. It wasn't a long walk, but it was enough of one, and he definitely wanted to be back before it got too late.

* * *

He walked around the edge of the temple, staying out of the cleared area, just like all the other animals. The tree wasn't in sight yet, but it would be hard to miss. Especially with a skeleton hanging out of the branches, like some cheap movie scare.

The poor soul was too easy to find, hanging there, tangled in the branches. For a moment, Ukyo couldn't quite decide if he really wanted to do this, but in his heart, he couldn't leave that man up there either.

Sighing, Ukyo started to climb the tree, giddy with the memory that came back to him. The memory of the night with Akane pressed against him in which he had entertained the most impure of thoughts, But only after she had fallen asleep.

Making his way out on the branches where the parachute had gotten caught so long ago, Ukyo held on tightly. If he fell, and didn't die, Akane would kill him anyway. Not that falling would be any picnic for him.

A few moldy shreds of parachute silk clung stubbornly to the rough bark, but other than that, the silk was rotted away. Unfortunate really. He had been hoping that there would be enough left to maybe fashion some clothing out of.

Ukyo observed the way the lines were tangled and caught among the branches. He had brought the knife, but had been hoping he wouldn't need to use it. If the lines could be kept intact until they needed to cut them, it would just be more convenient.

He pulled on one slightly and was surprised that it immediately broke free from the branches. No doubt that silk had gotten tangled, the lines caught up slightly, and the pilot's weight had caused everything to catch. But with all that gone mostly, it looked like it wouldn't be that hard.

Ukyo pulled on the other lines, having to untangle one of them, but aside from that, they fell free with very little effort on his part. And as the last one came free, the body of the unlucky pilot plummeted to the ground and smashed apart.

Ukyo watched for a moment from above as the bones came to rest. There was just something very creepy about the entire situation; it felt like he was graverobbing or something. That strange feeling that the pilot was not completely dead and would object to this treatment... It was silly, but he couldn't shake it.

Once back on the ground, Ukyo was forced to remove the harness from the torso of the corpse. It wasn't difficult as there were no limbs attached and the rib cage had been almost pulverized.

Saying a quick prayer for the pilot, Ukyo pulled the harness free and gathered the lines up. Frowning at the remains, he turned and headed back to the house.

* * *

"Brave little bastards, aren't they?" Akane asked, toeing the dead body at her feet. It seemed rare, but every so often, one of the wild dogs would attack them in the broad daylight. Though the attacks seemed more out of chance and desperation than anything since they were only one or two at a time.

This time, out gathering supplies to continue fixing up their new home, they had surprised a lone canine raiding a fallen bird's nest. It had turned on them, growling savagely, but it had taken a single swing of Ukyo's stick to fell the beast.

Ukyo looked at Akane, not bothering to speak the question.

She looked from the corpse up to him and shrugged. "Do you think we need it? I mean..."

"Only if you wish to carry it."

Akane shook her head. "I'll pass. My arms are still sore from the three ton pig I had to carry the other day."

"Yes. It was an excellent catch though. We'll get a lot of use out of it." The two of them stared at the dead dog uncomfortably. "It isn't necessary. Leave it."

Akane started to turn away when she heard a noise in the bushes. That was strange in itself as most of the island inhabitants avoided them at all costs. All except the dogs. Either way, it was surprise enough that she jumped back.

Staring at the spot the noise was coming from, Akane stepped toward it slowly, hand held up and poised for attack. She leaned down and pushed aside some leaves, not sure what to expect.

"What is it?" Ukyo whispered, staring at the spot, but unable to see what is was that had Akane's attention.

Akane reached into the bush and when she withdrew her hand, she was holding, by the scruff of its scrawny neck, a small dog. A puppy.

It whined and struggled in Akane's grasp, but that was all.

"Cute little buggers when they aren't trying to eat us, aren't they," she said, practically shoving the little dog in Ukyo's face.

"Not particularly, but that may be the bad experience with all of its... relatives." He backed away slightly, but close up, the little thing did have a certain charm about it.

The dog opened its mouth and released another pitiful whine, just hanging there.

"Why do you think it's out here?" Akane asked, looking over the pathetic thing. "That must have been its mother," she continued, gesturing to the dead dog on the ground.

"Who can say how the social structure of those vicious monsters operates." Ukyo was about to suggest that Akane leave the thing before she got fleas, but the way she was looking at it, he knew she would not. After all, the dog had to have been domesticated at some point in prehistory. This one was young, and it could probably be done, but...

Akane held the dog, not quite sure what to do. Natural order would dictate that she leave the animal to let things take their course without her intervention. Yet, she couldn't just leave it. The thing couldn't even defend itself, and what fairness was there in that?

"Do you truly think you can tame it?" Ukyo asked.

Akane looked away from the dog at him. Shrugging, she said, "I don't know. You don't think we should?"

Ukyo heard the shift away from herself to the encompassing "we" in an attempt to sway him. "I don't think it's wise. There's nothing to stop it from turning on us, attacking when we least expect it. It may be imprinted that it should..."

Akane waved him off. "You know that's not true. Stop making stuff up. So I'll level with you. I feel guilty about just leaving it. And I think it would be neat. There's nothing wrong with having an extra companion while we're on this island, is there?"

Looking between Akane and the little beast in her hand, Ukyo shrugged. "If you want."

"Only if you don't mind."

"I don't mind."

* * *

"Dog! Come 'ere, dog!" Akane was trying to get the little thing's attention, while the dog was just exploring the interior of their small stronghold.

"Are you actually attempting to train it?" Ukyo asked, taking an armload of plantains inside.

"Well..." Akane started to respond, but didn't say anything else.

So far, it seemed fine. The dog was a little high-strung, but other than that, it showed no signs of hostility toward either of them.

Ukyo had to reluctantly admit that it was kind of cute and that Akane seemed to be in a better mood with it around. Heck, even he felt in a better mood. The dog was proof that there was something that wasn't out to kill them on the island.

"Hey, you stupid dog! Look at me!" Akane said sharply, snapping her fingers.

Ukyo came out of the house and shook his head. "It won't learn. I think it's too wild to..."

"Hey dog!" Akane yelled.

The dog looked from its investigation of the a clump of grass to Akane, eyes perked forward.

"It's about time, you dumb dog. Come here," Akane repeated snapping her fingers again.

This time, it actually seemed to get the point and trotted merrily over to Akane.

Smiling, Akane began to pet him. "See? He's getting the hang of it."

Ukyo shook his head and smiled bemusedly. "I think it believes you have food."

"It was just a little encouragement. Besides, he's so skinny. He needs something to eat."

"Akane, you sound just like a worried mother. That little rodent should count itself lucky you decided that you pitied it."

Akane grinned. "Yeah, and I know how much you hate him. Softy. But what about a name?"

"A name? You mean actually **naming** the thing?" Ukyo asked in almost complete disbelief.

Akane couldn't help but chuckle at his response. "That's what's usually the result of naming something. So what's wrong with that anyway? You're not going to call him 'It' all the time, are you?"

"Possibly."

"Not if I have any say in it," Akane warned. "I'll name him..." She looked at the dog. The dog looked stupidly back up at her. "Um..."

"Well, I'm waiting to hear this name that's going to change our lives."

"I'm thinking! Give me a minute. You know," she said, grinning slyly, "I'm not all that good with names."

Meant to be funny, the comment only ended up making them both uncomfortable.

"I guess I'll name him... Dog."

Ukyo choked. "Dog? You're going to name it Dog? Are you joking?"

"No! What's wrong with Dog? He's a dog after all."

"But you... It's just... How can you..." Ukyo threw up his hands. "I give up. Its name is Dog."

Akane smiled and scratched Dog's ears. "See? I told you he was just a big softy, Dog. Go get Ukyo now! Go get him!" she encouraged, pointing at where Ukyo had gone inside.

Dog growled, taking on a decidedly playful look, and ran off after Ukyo.

* * *

Akane woke up early, stretching in the relatively cool morning air. She could still hear Ukyo's steady breathing and knew he was still asleep. She smiled briefly. That was why she did most of the fishing.

She skipped the morning trip to the spring, as she'd need a trip there after she was done in the ocean anyway. She grabbed some fruit and some dried meat and put it in her bag. Peeking around the curtain, Akane looked in on Ukyo.

He was sprawled out on his stomach with Dog sleeping soundly on the small of his back.

Akane barely contained her snicker. "Come on, Dog," she whispered. "Let's go fishing. Come on."

Dog opened his eyes slowly and looked up at her. His tail began to wag slowly and he yawned.

Akane patted her leg. "Come on, Dog. Let's go."

Standing and stretching and Ukyo's back first, Dog hopped down and trotted over to Akane.

She leaned down and scratched his head. "I don't think Ukyo will miss you," she whispered and left the house with Dog close at her heels.

The sun was just casting its rays across the treetops, late enough that the wild dogs had gone back to their mountain, but before the temperature started to rise. It looked like she'd get a good couple hours before it became unbearable on the raft to sit out on the water.

* * *

Akane retrieved a pair of spears from the lean-to. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep the rain off their supplies. Everything else was already down at the beach, stored up in a tree to keep the dogs from destroying those things.

The walk to the beach was pleasant and uneventful, as it was every morning. Akane kept a fairly close watch on Dog, though she knew she had nothing to worry about. The little thing had almost immediately adopted both her and Ukyo as his guardians. He didn't stray far from them if he had the choice.

At the beach, Akane climbed the tree and pulled down the rough reed basket that was filled with a tangle of crude-looking hide and plant fiber strings.

Back on the ground, Akane removed the tangle, revealing it to be a net of some sorts. She checked it to see that it was all intact, then put it back in the basket. Gathering her spears, she started toward the water.

The raft was safely anchored a bit off shore, in water that was about chest deep. The first time she had left it in shore, the dogs had made their presence known on it, and that had been the last time it had been left on the beach.

Akane waded out, Dog following dutifully behind her, swimming as the water got deeper and deeper. She put the spears and basket on the raft, then lifted Dog onto it. Next came the hard part: lifting the anchor. It was necessary to have an anchor heavy enough to not get dragged by the tide, but it also needed to be realistic as they had to lift the thing on to the raft.

Once the rock that acted as their anchor was on the raft, Akane began pushing the raft out, kicking her legs powerfully. Once she got out to the infantile reef, she would anchor the raft to that and get started. It was the same thing she had been doing ever since she had built the raft.

Dog stood at the front edge of the raft, barking at nothing. Not an active participant in the morning's activities, Dog was still Akane's frequent companion to break the monotony of the task.

At the reef, Akane pulled herself up on the raft then dumped the rock off the side. Tether staying slack, Akane knew the rock had landed on the reef.

First things first. Taking a deep breath, Akane dived below the surface, leaving Dog alone. He paced around the edge of the raft, peering into the water, barking periodically.

Akane resurfaced for a moment, then took another deep breath and dived beneath the water again.

"Whoo hoo!" she cried out as she broke the surface of the water, holding a large contraption in her hand.

Dog didn't know why, but she was happy, so he was happy too and began barking again. He was hopping excitedly for whatever it was in the big box in her hand.

Akane climbed up onto the raft, grinning. "We got one, Dog. We finally got one." She looked at the trap she had brought up, the thing shaking slightly. "Looks like it's not too happy either. It's gonna be real unhappy when we cook the little insect."

Dog barked in agreement as that seemed all he was capable of barking in.

"That's right. Real sorry. You watch it over and make sure it doesn't get away while I check on the other traps," Akane said to Dog. She scratched him between the ears before diving into the water.

* * *

Akane flopped on the raft, breathing heavily. None of the other traps had anything in them. Only one had worked. Still, it was one in the countless number they had set, trying to figure out how they would work.

Dog was sleeping next to the trap, his ears twitching as the trap wiggled every few moments.

Akane watched him and shook her head. That was just about what she felt like doing. Just lay down, have a nap and not worry about anything. "What am I gonna do with you, Dog?" she asked quietly.

He responded by rolling to his side, undisturbed.

Shaking her head, Akane lifted the anchor and moved the raft a bit down the reef. The fish seemed more prevalent as she moved to the South. It must have been something about the reef, she mused.

Stopped on the reef once again, Akane set about using the net and spear to try and fill the basket with fish. It combined the worst elements of regular fishing and watching paint dry. She usually ended up sitting on the raft, staring into the water for long periods of time.

Unfortunately, she had to let the fish come to her. Her net was good, but not good enough, and got cut up on the reef, otherwise she would just let it hang there, catching fish as they darted among the coral.

The net ended up being her herding device, sending fish swimming toward the raft where she could hopefully spear them. This worked, but not very well. They didn't eat fish in large quantities.

If they had reliable line, she could have just gone pole fishing, but she didn't trust any thread they could come up with to hold under the pressure of some of the fish down there, and any supply of hooks fashioned from bone would be fairly limited.

So Akane lay on her stomach wither her breasts hanging over the edge of the raft (much more comfortable that way), holding the net in one hand, a spear in the other, and just waited for fish.

"Dog, I would gladly swap spots with you any day," she mumbled, glancing back at the sleeping animal. "Then I wouldn't have to be here with my boobs hanging in the water."

Dog made a strange sound in his sleep, but did not stir.

"Stupid fish. I wish Ukyo was out here. He's better to talk to than you, Dog. But you're cuter. Barely." Akane looked at her reflection in the water, wondering how her hair would look like when it grew out.

"I don't know, Dog. I just get a feeling I should do something, tell him something, but when I start to, I can't. It's like someone's just squeezing my voice, like someone's telling me I shouldn't say anything." Akane sighed, her eyes still on her reflection.

"Do you think he likes me?" she asked, finally saying it out loud. She had wondered, but never voiced it. "I think he does, but I'm not sure. All that stuff he said, it could have been just because. He didn't really mean it maybe."

Dog's tail twitched and he rolled to his other side.

"Maybe if he said something to me first. Maybe if we were off this island. I think he does." Akane nodded to herself. "I think he does, Dog, but I don't know if I can do anything about it. Not that I don't want to, because I really think I would."

Akane looked back at Dog, who was still asleep. "Silly Dog. You're not helping me at all." She sighed and looked back at the water.

"I don't know if I should feel like this. But I don't want to just stay here and end up being friends for the rest of our lives." Akane frowned and jabbed with her spear, stabbing a fish.

She brought it out of the water, still wriggling, and dumped it in the basket.

"Well," she continued, waiting for another fish, "I guess that maybe I'll just have to make the first move. Ukyo's a guy. I'm a woman. He can't resist me. He has to like me."

Having convinced herself, Akane went back to her fishing. "Thanks, Dog. You're a pretty good listener. I guess those floppy ears are good for something."

Dog snorted and kicked his legs, running in some dream of his.

* * *

Akane anchored the raft and hopped in the water, carrying everything carefully. The trap was the really bulky thing, bulging from under her arm.

Dog splashed in behind her, very interested in the wiggling fish in the basket.

"Not now, Dog. You'll get some later. Besides, I think I've got a plan for tonight." The little bit of excitement bubbling in her was suddenly squashed by fear. "Or maybe not. Oh, I don't know!"

"Don't know what?"

Akane jumped, not noticing Ukyo standing a ways down the beach. "Nothing. Just... talking to Dog. Look what I caught," she said, quickly changing the subject. "One of them worked!"

"That's great! Let me help you out." He approached her, meaning to take some of the things from her.

Akane nodded, looking away demurely and knowing it. She felt silly, but also like a school girl. She was just thankful Ukyo didn't notice, or didn't mention it.

"Looks like we'll have a veritable feast tonight," he beamed, holding up the trap proudly. "Finally a design that works."

Akane nodded, still unable to meet his gaze. This was getting to be a feeling she didn't much like. She didn't like not having control of herself, her feelings.

They headed back to their house, not talking, but feeling better about the way things were going.

* * *

Deep under a swollen, bulging mound of earth and organic material, ten million living beings swarmed.

They were ants. A more precise name for them did not, at this time, exist. They bore marked similarities to the Leafcutter Ant which plagues the jungles of the Amazon Basin, and other traits which were more similar to the Driver Ant of the South Pacific.

Calling them ten million living beings is only technically true. The reality was that there was only one, vast, semi-aware mind spread across ten million separate components, communicating via a mixture of chemicals, preprogrammed DNA, and exchanges that humans would term 'psychic phenomena'. It was quite natural, really. After all, what is a human brain but a collection of individual neurons through which electricity passes?

A biological timer slowly ripped away seconds. Five, four, three, two.

One.

Slowly, like some massive animal shaking itself awake, ten million ants boiled out of the mound. The carefully maintained egress holes bulged, burst, and split, strained beyond their capacity was the living tide burst free of the earth. Before long, the one impressive structure was nothing more than a deflated-looking lump buried under thousands of armored bodies.

The tide flowed down the path of least resistance, as they had for the past few millennia. They had a total of five ranges; when one grew scarce, the entire nest moved to the next site to give the last one several decades to recover.

Of course, the route they took never fully recovered. Because the ants needed food for their migration, and could not let anything slow them down, and were agitated and enraged by the need to move on.

They passed over trees and shrubs. The shrubs simply melted like snow. The smaller trees swayed for a moment, turned black with thousands of swarming beings, and then fell to the ground. The larger ones would stand, barren, branchless poles, mortally wounded.

Those birds with nests and young never had a chance. A parrot, green plumage covered with swarming black, dived into the air, hung for a second, and then fell like a stone into the boiling river beneath it.

A wild dog, out hunting, ran headlong into the swarm. It squealed in terror, turned, and then the river engulfed it. It went from living animal to glistening skeleton in under thirty seconds.

Across the path of the black river, a silent, soundless wave of terror passed. Animals bolted from a sound sleep and ran blindly into the jungle, not knowing who or what they were fleeing from. Some ran directly into the ants. Their deaths were quick, if not pleasant.

They were marvelously suited for this migration, these insects in black-armored chitin. Six legs, capable of moving them over rough terrain at high speeds. A set of powerful ripping mandibles, with a smaller set beneath for chewing and fine manipulation. Venom sacs were located on each of them, and while the amount released was insignificant to a large animal like a dog or a boar, the amount released by dozens of swarming ants would quickly paralyze the central nervous system. There would be discomfort, but no pain; the victims were alive and unmoving until the first ant ate its way into the brain and began to destroy mental functions.

They could take terrible punishment and keep moving. They had no concern for each other as individuals, any more than the cells of our bodies have for each other. If the path written in their genetic code as impassable, they kept moving forward until it became passable. And there was very little that could obstruct them. About the only thing that could was water or massive fire, and even then they would, likely as not, ford the water on leaves and in clumps and over the branches of trees, or move around or burrow beneath the fire.

Like a living flash flood, they boiled along their ancient pathway. The ground they left behind them was bare of any life. Just the husks of trees and the bones of animals.

The area would recover. Life springs eternal. But in a few decades, it would happen all over again.

That's why the trees and brush along the migration path were so sparse.

* * *

Ukyo looked outside and frowned.

It was too still. Too quiet, tonight. Normally the jungle was filled with cries and yelps, and tonight...

Tonight there were noises in the background, shrill and harsh, somewhere in the far distance. And over that, a pall of silence.

He ruefully chuckled. The quiet probably just meant that their tiny patch of civilization was keeping the animals at a wary distance. That would be a pleasant change.

It would certainly beat being leapt at by wild dogs, anyway.

Smiling slightly he eyed the palisade. A lot of work to build, but well work it. Nothing short of a rhino was going to get through that.

The house, now... Frank Lloyd Wright, they weren't, but it was about as comfortable as you could expect, given what they had to work with. Crude, but very, very serviceable, and with room to be expanded.

For one thing, he should really make them their own rooms.

Ukyo sighed. He didn't **want** separate rooms, which was one of the main reasons they needed them.

His thoughts slipped into a mode of questioning that was becoming very, very familiar to him. What had they been before coming here? Friends? Enemies? Lovers? He was almost certain that they weren't related, but aside from that...

It was incredibly frustrating. For all he knew, they could have been openly in love before coming here, and now...

Well, now he was afraid that he felt something for her. Something very strong. And he had no idea how Akane would react to learning that.

For one thing, he was stuck on a desert island with her; maybe a man would feel this way towards any woman stranded with him. For another... again, he was stuck on a desert island with her. They needed to work together, closely; if his attraction to her made her uncomfortable, how were they supposed to do that? It could get them killed.

So he kept quiet out of necessity. And because he was afraid, but necessity made a better excuse.

"Ukyo? Something wrong?"

He turned slightly. "I do not think so. It's just... quiet tonight."

Akane shrugged, leaning against the doorframe in a posture he wished he could admire more openly. "Good. Better than those damn mutts camping right outside our gate and howling."

Ukyo nodded, still slightly uneasy. "I suppose..."

"Heh. Yeah, I suppose too. Come to bed, Dog will bark his silly little head off if anything stirs."

Somewhat reluctantly, he followed her back inside. They each had their own pallet, and a rush curtain in between the two.

He lay down in his, and blew the fat lamp out.

Akane undressed for bed, her lamp still lit, and he tried not to watch the shadow behind the curtain. Well, mostly tried.

She was taking her time about it, he thought absently.

When her lamp was finally extinguished, it took a long time for him to finally get to sleep.

Ukyo had been right when he had expected the palisade to stop anything smaller than a rhino.

The swarm was much, much bigger than a rhino.

Dog woke from doggish dreams to see a huge, black creature seeping through the straining, bursting outer wall. A smarter, wilder animal would have fled. Dog, a domesticated, loyal, stupid little thing, snarled and ran to attack the intruder.

The intruder barely noticed.

The crazed, agonized yelp woke Ukyo, and he immediately knew something was horribly wrong. Still half asleep, he jumped from his pallet, and heard Akane start to struggle free of her cot as well.

He dashed to the door, threw it open, and sucked in his breath.

A tide of humming, buzzing, moving blackness was sweeping across the yard towards the house. Behind it, the palisade wall was melting, sagging...

"Out!" he screamed, running back into the house. "Akane! Hurry! We need..."

He moaned, realizing that even if they went out the door now, they would still be engulfed before they could round the corner of the house.

*THWACK*

Akane swung the axe a second time, and a section of the back wall fell out. "Ukyo, here!" He could see the raw fear in her eyes.

They dashed out the hole in the wall, tiny black object drooping from the ceiling as they did. One landed on Ukyo's arm, and he swore as it stung. Was the stuff some sort of acid, or...?

He watched it move, and realized with horror the nature of their enemy.

"Ants!" he yelled, a touch of hysteria entering his voice. Of all the ways to die that he could think of...

Akane frantically hacked at the outer wall, ripping away boards with axe and fists. The palisade hole widened...

Something stung his leg, and he swore. The outriders were here, and the swarm was only feet away...

Akane squirmed through the hole, and the sight of her posterior in the moonlight was almost enough to let lust override fear. Almost.

Ah, our romantic moments, his mind yammered as he hastily followed her, ants now biting at his feet and lower legs.

The second they cleared the outer wall, they ran like hell.

Around them, the swarm passed.

They dashed through the night, a primal horror filling them. Something huge any tiny and alien was after them, and their instincts led them along the path of least resistance as fast as they could run.

Had reason been a factor, they might or might not have figured out that least resistance for them was also least resistance for the ants.

As it was, their options were growing fewer. The palisaded house had held up the ants in the center path; but the ones to either side had passed them by. They were in the mouth of a living, flowing 'V', and a look back by Ukyo told him that they were losing ground.

"They're gaining!" he screamed. Akane glanced back, swallowed, and gave him a look of mixed terror and determination. Then she put on yet more speed, and ran. He somehow matched her.

They were about as fast as any non-Olympic runner, but they still could tire and slow. The ants, on the other hand, could keep up their mindless, swarming pace for weeks. It would not take weeks for Ukyo and Akane to drop from exhaustion.

He swallowed. About the only chance they had was to cross a river or a gorge or something, and he didn't think that there were any rivers in the northern part of the island. The only landmark, in fact, was...

The temple rose out of the distance ahead, bone white against the greens and browns of the jungle.

Maybe the need to detour around and over it would slow the ants down... no, he though, running around it would slow them down, too. And the breath was coming harder for him, and the ants didn't look like they got tired... this was the end of the line.

"Into the temple!" he yelled to Akane.

"Are you crazy?" she panted back. "We'll be trapped!"

"They're gaining anyway! Maybe we can lift that slab and hide in the room beneath; I doubt they can eat through solid rock."

"Did you see that stone? And the stairs? I think there was something down there..."

"Yes," he said between gasps for breath. "But I **know** there is a horde of carnivorous ants behind us, and I suggest that whatever may or may not be down there is infinitely preferable."

"You have a point."

They dashed through the open gates, carefully ignoring the blighted foliage surrounding it, and briefly pulled to a halt.

"Where to?" Ukyo asked, glancing around the small courtyard warily. Akane shrugged.

"I guess your idea was best..." She shuddered. "But I really don't like it."

"Neither do I, but..."

His voice trailed off, and he mutely pointed out the gate.

The ants had swarmed to the very foot of the blasted vegetation surrounding the temple. And then, as if cut by a knife, they split.

They split, and in two streams flowed around the temple like water around a tall rock.

Akane stared. "They didn't even come up to the walls. They just hit the clearing and went around. Now why the hell would they do that?"

Ukyo watched the streaming ants with a certain foreboding. "Perhaps they know something that we do not."

"Maybe." She stared out at the tide of insects flowing past the island of pale stone and twisted plants, and shuddered. "You just said that whatever's in here can't be as bad as the ants. Still certain about that?"

He opened his mouth to reply, considered, and then shut it again. He was not at all certain.

"I still find remaining here preferable to leaving," he told her. "Do you agree?"

Akane kept her gaze fixed on the swarm, a mixture of horror and fascination on her face. "Yeah. I definitely agree."


End file.
